EVENTS｜Tokyo Biennale 2025 — Wander for Wonder

Listening to the Tokyo Biennale

Workshop
Tours
Sanpo

An Art Festival Experience That Doesn't Use Your Eyes / Listening to the Biennale with a Dialogue in the Dark Attendant

Dialogue in the Dark: Attending with Kinoppi (totally blind), we will experience Akio Suzuki’s “o to da te” at Tokyo Biennale 2025 and hold a discussion about our respective experiences. What kind of world does Kinoppi, who is totally blind, perceive through sound? We will walk together, stand in that space, and listen intently. When installing the “Oto-date” work, Suzuki the artist taught us how to capture sound with our entire bodies. Standing in that same space alongside Kinnoppi, who is totally blind, promises to be a valuable experience. It will awaken a sense of sound perception different from our everyday lives. The Tokyo Biennale is an international art festival rooted in Tokyo. We look forward to discovering how its appeal can be experienced “without seeing.” Walking Area We will explore the points of Suzuki Akio’s “o to da te” in Tokyo Biennale 2025 installed around Artizon Museum, then proceed to view Yonaha Shun’s TA･TA･TARO 2023 installed in the Tokyo Station Yaesu North Exit passageway. Guide Michinori Kinoshita Known as Kinoppi. Dialog in the Dark attendant; totally blind. Born in 1979. Visually impaired from birth. Lost sight at age 16 and has been totally blind since. Graduated from the Acupuncture and Moxibustion Department of Tsukuba Technical College (now Tsukuba Technical University) in 2001. Active as a Dialog in the Dark (DID) attendant since 2004. Also handles corporate training sessions in darkness. Provided interview and research assistance for the book How Do Blind People See the World? by Aya Ito (Kobunsha Shinsho). Kinoshita enjoying “o to da te” installed at Toeizan Kan’ei-ji Temple. Kinoshita experiencing the art installation near the Artizon Museum. What is Dialogue in the Dark? It is a social entertainment experience where participants, guided by visually impaired individuals, enjoy various senses and communication beyond sight within “100% pure darkness” where all light is completely blocked. Conceived in 1988 by German philosopher Dr. Andreas Heinecke, it has been held in approximately 50 countries, with over 9 million people experiencing it. In Japan, since its first event in November 1999, over 300,000 people have participated. It is currently held at the Dialogue Diversity Museum “Forest of Dialogue” in Takeshiba, Tokyo. At Tokyo Biennale 2025, we will dedicate time to learning about providing festival guidance for individuals with visual impairments and apply this knowledge to our visitor services. We have invited representatives from Dialogue in the Dark as instructors, listened to the perspectives of individuals who are fully blind and related stakeholders, considered what we can do, and have begun implementing initiatives. From the records of the “Special Workshop” titled “Encouraging Participation in Art Festivals for Visually Impaired Individuals,” held for Tokyo Biennale 2025 operational part-time staff and volunteers (October 4, 2025). Kinoppi (Michinori Kinoshita) and Shinsuke Shimura, Founder of Dialogue in the Dark Japan, attended and conducted the special workshop.

Ended 12/10/2025 / Around the Kyobashi Saiku
(Artizon Museum/TODA BUILDING)

Workshop
Other

RRR OFFICE Sub-rent Program #7: Grafis Huru Hara

A Children’s Workshop and Barter-based Exchange Activity! Grafis Huru Hara (GHH) is a collective of graphic artists based in Jakarta, Indonesia. Founded in 2012, the group focuses on exploration, experimentation, and education in the medium of printmaking. In 2018, together with ruangrupa and Serrum, GHH co-founded Gudskul, an ecosystem for contemporary art and collective learning. They collaborate with a wide range of artists and collectives, engaging in exhibitions, printmaking workshops, publishing projects, and various other activities. SubliMash: Kids Collage Print Workshop Sublime Collage with Grafis Huru Hara Let’s create your own original Christmas gift using sublimation printing! Combine artist-designed graphics freely and use an iron to transfer vibrant images onto tote bags or handkerchiefs. It’s easy to make by hand and perfect for everyday use. Join us and create a heartfelt gift that symbolises care and friendship! Date & Time: Dec 7 (Sun), 13:00–15:00 Target Age: 6–15 years old Elementary school children must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. How to Participate: No registration is required. Please come directly to the venue and let us know you’d like to join. Duration: The workshop takes approximately 15–30 minutes per participant. Notes An iron will be used during the workshop. Young children should work together with their parent or guardian. If the venue becomes crowded, you may be asked to wait for a short time. BARTERIN: Exchange Space “Butsubutsu Kōkan (物々交換)” “There is no fixed price—only mutual agreement” Barterin is a participatory public program proposed by Grafis Huru Hara (GHH) for Ebihara Shoten, functioning as an experimental space for non-monetary value exchange. In this program, GHH presents printmaking artworks that are not sold with money, but can be acquired through a system of barter — exchanged with objects, materials, experiences, stories, or personal items brought by visitors. This program creates a direct interaction space between artists and visitors, where negotiation becomes an essential part of the artwork itself. The value of each artwork is not fixed, but is determined through negotiation based on interpretation, need, memory, and even humor, turning every exchange into a social and performative experience. Program Format 1. Exhibition of Works: Dec 4 (Thu) –7 (Sun), 11:30–16:30 (until 15:00 on the 7th) 2. Barter Session; Dec 7 (Sun), 15:00–17:00 Visitors may negotiate directly with the artists about the terms of exchange. Negotiations will be recorded as part of the archive. 3. Display of Exchanged Items: Dec 11 (Thu)–14 (Sun), 11:30–16:30

Ended 12/04/2025 - 12/07/2025 / Ebihara Shoten

Workshop

Toda Shoko | Let's make "Yubinoma" gloves – Handicraft Workshop

Have you ever watched a scary movie, covered your face with your hands, and then peeked through the gap between your fingers? The world seen through those slits feels just a little different from usual. There’s even a legend that peering through a window made of fingers reveals a monster’s true form. It seems the space between fingers actually holds a mysterious power. That’s why we named this gap “Yubinoma.” It’s a slightly special space, like a tokonoma alcove. Yubinoma gloves have zippers between the fingers. Even though it’s your own hand, opening the zipper reveals an unfamiliar space. Just as you might hang a scroll in a tokonoma, let’s draw your favorite pictures in the “yubinoma” too. The “yubinoma” might connect to another world. Tiny creatures might have made their home in the “yubinoma.”

Ended 11/22/2025 / The Craft Lab by YKK

Workshop

RRR OFFICE Sub-rent Program #3: Helen Eriksen – Forming Dialogue: Collaging and Assembling Identities Workshop

RRR OFFICE approaches gathering as both methodology and theory: an open practice that uses presence, conversation, and shared time as tools for collective making. Each encounter contributes to the formation of the work, slowly transforming Ebihara Shoten into a site of exchange and resonance. It runs its own program, but also opens to others through a sub-rent approach. The week’s the sub-rent program is the workshop by Helen Eriksen. This workshop brings together two groups of participants—arts faculty students and students of Japanese language—across three convivial sessions shaped by dialogue and exchange. At its core lies a guiding question: How does a collective identity align with the needs and wishes of individual identity? In this workshop, participants explore national and individual identities through collage and assemblage. By bringing their own skills, methods, and cultural knowledge, participants contribute to creating a shared, collaborative space. By combining perspectives from artistic practice with those rooted in Japanese language and culture, the project opens space for dynamic and unexpected visual dialogues around belonging, national narratives, and the shaping of personal experience. Schedule(tentative) 11:00-13:00　Introduction 14:00-17:00 Collage and Assemblage Artist Helen Eriksen Artist and educator living and working in Oslo. She was born in and raised in the UK. She is a co-founder of Tenthaus art collective and currently an associate professor in arts and crafts at Oslo Metropolitan University. She works in the intersection of art, pedagogy, and research to explore the potential of that space and to investigate transdisciplinary modes of knowledge production.

Ended 11/14/2025 - 11/16/2025 / Ebihara Shoten

Workshop

Eiji Watanabe | Let’s Make a Horse-Head Cane!

Workshops by Eiji Watanabe, a biennale artist. Creating a Special Walking Stick to Enrich Your Daily Strolls Participants will craft a unique walking stick by attaching a ceramic horse head to the tip of a bamboo staff. Walking with your own hand-painted horse will give you the feeling of being guided one step further into the future. Workshop Process Using special ceramic markers, participants freely decorate a pre-prepared white porcelain horse head. After painting, the horse head is baked in a household toaster oven for about 15 minutes to set the colors The finished horse head is then attached to the tip of the bamboo staff, and reins are fixed to serve as the handle—completing the walking stick. With your completed staff in hand, your daily walks will become an even richer and more delightful experience. Notes Children under elementary school age must be accompanied by a guardian. If a typhoon is approaching or rainfall of more than 30mm per hour is forecast on the day of the event, we will inform you of the decision to hold or cancel the event by the day before.

Ended 11/09/2025 / Etoile Kaito Living Bldg.

Workshop
Talk

RRR OFFICE Sub-rent Program #2: Collective Collective

RRR OFFICE approaches gathering as both methodology and theory: an open practice that uses presence, conversation, and shared time as tools for collective making. Each encounter contributes to the formation of the work, slowly transforming Ebihara Shoten into a site of exchange and resonance. It runs its own program, but also opens to others through a sub-rent approach. The week’s participant in the sub-rent program is Collective Collective. Collective Collective is a project between eight visual arts collectives with majority-racialized members in Tkaronto (Toronto, Canada) as a response to the systemic racism and exploitative labour conditions in the arts, as well as the interrelated lack of sustainability within the sector. In Tokyo, they will be hosting two events that center the practice of gathering together. Guidance Council Date: Saturday, November 8, 14:00–16:30 Please RSVP here. Guidance Council is a casual gathering that invites artists and collectives to eat together, share stories, exchange experiences, and offer advice to one another. Through informal conversation and mutual support, Guidance Council reimagines forms of professional networking, workplace gossip, and leadership training — centering friendship, shared learning, and collective care. Guidance Council is usually hosted in Tkaronto (Toronto, Canada) by and for ethnic-minority artists to disrupt how systemic racism prevails in the power dynamics of the local art sector. *This event will be conducted in English only. *Guidance Council is organized by Peter Rahul and Alexandra Hong as part of Collective Collective. Destiny’s Childcare Date: Sunday, November 9, 14:00–16:30 Please RSVP here. Artist-parents and their children are invited to participate in a collaborative flower arrangement activity and a discussion on the interrelated aspects of caregiving and artmaking. No floristry experience required. Materials provided and you’ll get to take home your floral arrangement. This program is part of Destiny’s Childcare – a project that responds to the lack of structural support for artist-parents and challenges the norm that artists disappear from the art world after becoming parents. It affirms that children are integral to everyday life, and that intergenerational care is a shared social responsibility. *Please note we will be using fresh flowers. *Destiny’s Childcare is a project between art collectives Younger than Beyoncé and Gendai, as part of Collective Collective.

Ended 11/08/2025 - 11/09/2025 / Ebihara Shoten

Workshop

L PACK. | Let's Make a Unique Art Festival Tote Bag

Workshops by L PACK. (Susumu Odagiri and Tetsuya Nakajima), biennale artists. The project “Totes my GOATs” by L PACK. collects tote bags sold at art festivals around the world and sheds light on the relationship between “art festivals (the extraordinary)” and “tote bags (the ordinary)” through their designs and backgrounds. In this workshop, participants will freely combine provided texts to create their own “original art festival,” which will then be printed onto tote bags using silk-screen printing. From designs that feel like they could actually exist to unique and unconventional creations, let’s collaborate to make a one-of-a-kind original art festival tote bag together. Notes We will prepare the tote bag body. Additional printing on brought-in materials is also possible.

Ended 10/19/2025 / Etoile Kaito Living Bldg.

Workshop
Sanpo

Adam Roigart | For the Public- SANPO: Exploring Forgotten Urban Spaces – Walking/Making/Hosting Together

Participatory events for a biennale artist Adam Roigart’s Sanpo Project. Roigart has long focused on overlooked corners of the city, exploring ways of intervening in these places through gatherings. In this project, participants will visit forgotten spaces scattered across Tokyo with him, assemble simple structures on site (such as tables or benches), and experience a form of temporary “hacking” and collective “hosting.” These walks into what could be called “non-places” aim to share the latent potential of each site and open it up to new relationships. At the same time, they naturally question themes that Adam has consistently been interested in: caring for places, access from the public, hands-on design experiences, and the joy of working together. Through this project, participants will engage with each site directly, while also sharing new experiences and stories with one another, creating connections between people and place. Schedule Departure We set off toward a selected site carrying the structural parts, flags, tools, and light refreshments. Arrival at the Site – Activating the Space – Assemble Assemble the simple structures together – Share beverage and light snacks together. – Dismantle all structures and return the site to its original condition. Return to the Starting Point Return to the initial meeting point and bring back all items to the exhibition space. Meeting Point 1F Workshop Space, Etoile Kaito Living Building (see Map section below) Notes In case of rain, the event will be postponed as follows: ① Sat 10/11 -> Sun 10/12 ② Sun 10/19 -> Sun 10/26

Ended 10/11/2025 - 10/19/2025 / Etoile Kaito Living Bldg.

Workshop
Sanpo

Mariam Tovmasian | Sunwalks — A Sanpo Cyanotype Archive

Workshops by Mariam Tovmasian, a biennale artist. Step away from Tokyo’s fast rhythm and explore a cyanotype workshop that captures the city’s traces and the chance moments discovered while walking. Starting from a meeting point, we will take a slow walk through the area, collecting objects that seem meaningful along the way, and then create original prints under the sun! Cyanotype is an early photographic technique that uses sunlight and water to produce vivid blue images. Participants will learn how the shapes of various objects leave their traces on paper through light and time. By walking, noticing, and imprinting with sunlight, you will capture Tokyo’s fast-paced landscape while experiencing the slower rhythms hidden within it. Meeting and Dismissal Points Meeting point: Hamacho Park, in front of Exit A2, Hamacho Station (Toei Shinjuku Line) Dismissal point: Etoile Kaito Living Building, 1-15-15 Higashi-Kanda, Chiyoda-ku (near Bakurocho Station, JR Sobu Line) What to bring 3–5 small objects that you associate with Tokyo or that remind you of the city An apron Notes As the event involves walking, please join only if in good health. Outdoors under the sun—bring sun protection (parasol, hat, etc.). Wear clothes you don’t mind getting dirty. Participants may take their prints home, but one piece must be contributed to the artist’s exhibition. Children of elementary school age or younger must be accompanied by a guardian (guardians also require a ticket). Cancelled in case of rain.

Ended 09/20/2025 - 10/19/2025 / Hamacho Park (Hamacho Sta. A2 Exit)