Tomoko Hayashi was selected to spend a three-month residency in Paris through the program Institut français x Cité internationale des arts, from January to April 2026.
AIR Program in Paris
Tomoko Hayashi
Laureate of AIR Program in Paris 2025/2026
Tomoko Hayashi creates installations that explore the relationship between human consciousness and memory—both regarded as part of nature that is continuously generating—and the physical natural environment. Moving between poetry and science, between the body and the unconscious, her work is grounded in field research and seeks to awaken a pre-verbal sensitivity in the viewer. She has exhibited her work internationally, including at the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), the National Museum of Art (Osaka), and Kyoto Art Center. Her recent solo exhibitions include Reweaving the Rainbow (2021) and And the World Is Mud (2024).
During her residency, she will be working on a new project that engages with the memories of wetlands and unconscious layers lying beneath the urban landscape of Paris.
Bodhisattva Pond
About AIR Program in Paris
The Artist in Residence program in Paris 2025/2026 is a bilateral residency program organized by the Chishima Foundation For Creative Osaka and Villa Kujoyama (Kyoto), in collaboration with Institut français, Cité internationale des arts, and Kyoto Art Center. This program aims to support one artist, researcher, or curator working in the Kansai region to develop their activities while being exposed to the French cultural, social, and artistic scene.
The successful applicant receives support from the above-mentioned cultural institutions for a three-month research and/or production residency in a live in studio located at the Cité internationale des arts in central Paris.
Conditions for application
Location
Cité internationale des arts (Marais site)
Period
3 months from January to April
Number of successful applicants
1 artist will be selected for this year’s open call.
*Application as a group is not possible.
Profile
– individual based and working in the Kansai region (Kyoto, Osaka, Shiga, Nara, Wakayama, Hyogo)
– individual having activities as an artist, curator, or art critic
– all artistic disciplines
– all nationalities are accepted
– We are not able to accept students (applications are however accepted if the course has been completed at the moment by the time the residency starts).
Supports during the residency program
– A studio will be allocated to the resident (Marais site)
– flight tickets round trip (direct flight in economy class between KIX and CDG aiports)
– 500 000 yens for living costs and research/production costs
All other expenses will be covered by the applicant.
The successful applicant needs to have an insurance during the residency.
Before the arrival at Cité internationale des arts, payment of deposit for the studio will be required.
Conditions of application
–Applicants must be able to work from Cité internationale des Arts in Paris.
–Applicants must be able to communicate in English or French.
–Applicants must be able to participate in a reporting session or event in Osaka or Kyoto after their stay in Paris.
The previous laureates
Find below the profiles of the previous laureates of the program.
2024/2025: Koshiro Hino
Koshiro Hino is a musician and composer, born in 1985 in Shimane, Japan, and currently based in Osaka. His works include « goat, » a band formation that attempts to use melody instruments as percussion instruments as well as compositions that combine multiple beats; « bonanzas, » a noise/hardcore version of this band; and « YPY, » an electronic music solo project. His representative compositions include « GEIST » (2018-) and « INTERDIFFUSION » (2021-). He won the Best Composition Award at the Estonian Film Award EFTA2024 (for the film « The Invisible Fight »).
2024/2025: Kenta Kuroda
Based in Kyoto, Japan, Kenta Kuroda works in the dance field, and at the cafe and hotel KéFU. He has been involved in works by MuDA,Super D, HIxTO, RESSENCHKA, Manaki Uno, Emi Ogura, Kazuhiko Hiwa, Aki Kojima, Hokuto Kodama, Osamu Shikichi, Hana×Matsu, Midori Kurata, and others. Since 2018, he has been organizing sessions with people he meets on the street, borrowing their experiences from them. Since 2022, he has been conducting the "Verse Paradox" project, a retrospective about those sessions.
2020/2021: Mizuki Kajihara et Soshi Matsunobe
Mizuki Kajihara
Residency period : From October 2020 to January 2021
Especially interested in western classical music, Mizuki Kajihara creates works by decomposing and reconstructing correctly assembled musical scores through physical experience.
By reinterpreting symbols with other informations, the artist explores new ways of connecting classics and current times through music and possibilities in contemporary artistic expression.
Residency project : Le retour à la vie
Interested in the way of clearly identifying music as a motif, though not without recalling to the role played by language itself, Mizuki Kajihara proposes individuals to play, repeating like the “broken telephone” game that they heard from the previous players using the most representative phrases in this Berlioz’s masterpiece – The Symphonie fantastique, and records the performances.
The played musical phrases can highlight each participant’s perception formed by his environment and culture, as well as its connection between language and motif.
As Berlioz proposed a theory named idée fixe (fixed idea) and limited the role of music, Mizuki Kajihara explores, by re-abstracting the music which represent the concretion, the «human perceptions» through physical experimentations.
Selected exhibitions
・ KUAD ANNUAL 2020 Fieldwork Contemporary Art as a Guidebook to the World, 2020, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo
・ ULTRA GLOBAL AWARD 2017 Exhibition Alchemy for New Fountains – Making and not making, 2017, Galerie Aube , Kyoto
More info : mizukikajiharaportfolio.tumblr.com
**
Soshi Matsunobe
Residency period : From January to April 2021
In his work, Soshi Matsunobe explores the way of re-presenting the concepts of hollow, shadow, blank and emptiness, such as a hole (zero-dimensional point) and a gap (one-dimensional line), physically in 2D or 3D spaces.
In recent years, his main concern is with site-specific works, such as wallpaper installations, project of installed stones in cities or outdoor sculptures.
Residency project : Investigation and development of conceptual installations that expresses “ground”
The word “ground” may refer to direct “background” such as walls, floors, or grounds, or may also refer to “background of event (process) ” like materials, rules, and customs.
During his residency period, Soshi Matsunobe explores this statement of “ground”, as «figure and ground” by reconstructing this element from various angles.
Soshi Matsumoto seeks new outlooks to express the “ground” through 3 axis of research, applied on his future installation work. This first one is linked to Daniel Buren’s artistic expression, as well as the range of its developpement, relativizing the existing “ground” and revealing both the environment and situation where the work is made.
Then, the research is conducted in the way to create a space using an original print wallpaper. To finish with, a survey will be conducted on small buildings from the viewpoint of latest architecture and design to be able to dress a definition of the “ground” related to his work.
Selected exhibitions
・KYOTO ART FOR TOMORROW 2020 – Selected Up-and-coming Artists, 2020, The museum of Kyoto, Kyoto
・ SEE THE SHADES 2019, Hagiwara projects, Tokyo
More info : matsunobe.net
Crédits
Portrait Tomoko Hayashi : © Yuna Yagi