Nuit Blanche Kyoto 2025 at Villa Kujoyama

Program subject to change.
Schedule will be updated on this page.

Please note that Villa Kujoyama has no parking facilities for cars, only bicycle parking.

2:00‑7:00 PM – Studios
Open studios by Agathe Charnet, Mark Geffriaud, Mona Oren, Vincent Tuset‑Anrès, and Théo Mouzard & Marine Royer

3:00‑4:00 PM – Auditorium
“Residency in Kumamoto”: presentation by Krikor Kouchian

4:00‑5:00 PM – Salon
Print Gocco workshop with Vincent Tuset‑Anrès (FR‑ENG‑JP)

5:30‑6:15 PM – Auditorium
Commuters album launch concert: Krikor Kouchian with Hideaki Yamada, drummer of the band Kukangendai

8:00‑9:00 PM – Salon
DJ set by Krikor Kouchian

TORO café will be selling snacks !

2:00‑6:00 PM – Auditorium

Film screenings (FR with JP subtitles):

14:00 What the Villa did to me (2025, 55 min)

16:00 : Alone in Kyoto (2024, 25 min) by Julie Vacher

17:30 Kekkai (2025, 17 min) by Ulla von Brandenburg

2:00‑6:00 PM – Studio 3
Installation: Open studio by Mark Geffriaud

2:00‑6:00 PM – Auditorium
Workshop by Maguelone Vidal

2:00‑6:00 PM – Studio 3
Installation: Open studio by Mark Geffriaud

2:00‑3:00 PM – Auditorium
Screening of Ce que la Villa m’a fait

3:00‑5:00 PM – Auditorium
“Return from Residency in Wakasa: Living in the Tanabe House”: lecture by Théo Mouzard & Marine Royer

2:00‑6:00 PM – Studios 3 & 6
Installation: Open studio by Mark Geffriaud
Studio opening by Théo Mouzard & Marine Royer

2:00‑7:00 PM – Studios
Open studios by Darius Dolatyari‑Dolatdoust & Grégoire Schaller, Agathe Charnet, Mark Geffriaud, Mona Oren, Théo Mouzard & Marine Royer, and Laureline Galliot

3:00‑4:30 PM – Auditorium
Lecture by Nicolas Pinon and urushi maker Tsutsumi Takuya, and screening of an excerpt from Asa, a film by Félix Marye on the research of Nicolas Pinon & Dimitry Hlinka at Villa Kujoyama

5:00‑5:45 PM – Garden
FAIRE FAMILLE.S – ACT 1: theatrical and musical performance by Agathe Charnet with Rei Ariyoshi, Giulia De Sia and Virgile L. Leclerc

6:00‑6:15 PM – Terrace
Screening of the film Kujoyama sur mer (Kujoyama by the Sea) by Mark Geffriaud

7:00‑7:15 PM – Salon
Screening of the film #3 – The Final Love by Darius Dolatyari‑Dolatdoust & Grégoire Schaller

7:30 PM – 9:00 PM – Terrace
Cocktail

TORO café will be selling snacks !

2:00‑6:00 PM – Studio 3
Installation: Open studio by Mark Geffriaud

3:00‑3:30 PM / 5:00‑5:30 PM – Auditorium
Matter & Body #5: performance with Nina Fradet, Aoi Higuchi, Meri Otoshi, Sagar Patel and Masahiko Takeda / Collaboration: Kohsetsu Imanishi
【Kyoto Experiment: Kyoto International Performing Arts Festival 2025 – Fringe: More Experiments】

Video screenings: Éclats (2018) by Mona Oren and Parapara by Vincent Tuset-Anrès

Grégoire Schaller et Darius Dolatyari-Dolatdoust (2025, dance)

 

Love to Death

 

Love to Death draws upon Yūkoku (Rite of Love and Death), the only film directed by Yukio Mishima, shot in 1966. It is a closed-door drama set in a Noh theatre, in which Mishima plays a lieutenant who chooses seppuku after the failure of a coup d’état, joined in death by his wife. Darius and Grégoire’s project will take the form of a series of five performances that follow the structure of the film—not to recreate its narrative, but to explore a performative vocabulary around the representation of death. Nourished by a plurality of mediums—dance, photography, metalwork, text, textile, video, and costume—as well as the practice of butoh, the performances will use the film’s photograms as choreographic molds, distorted and unfolded in space, in search of a dense presence specific to the quest to embody the image.

Vincent Tuset-Anres (2025, design)

 

A panorama of the artist’s book in Japan

 

Using the artist’s book as a jumping board, Vincent Tuset-Anrès proposes to examine the entire ecosystem of Japanese art publishing. His project sets out to shed light on its procedures and know-how; its technical, aesthetic and conceptual particularities, as well as contemporary practices. By working in Japan, he will be in contact with people who work in the art publishing world whose expertise will add to his research. Following this period of fieldwork, he hopes to present his project to a wider public, with the aim of eliciting new models for a sector that is currently in transition. In this way, Vincent Tuset-Anrès seeks to showcase the rich tradition of art publishing in Japan, the excellence of its artisans, and the inventiveness and vitality of the contemporary scene.

Mona Oren (2025, crafts)

 

 

Haze wax, a treasure to explore

 

Mona Oren’s work revolves around an emotional core woven from impermanence and memory, embodied in a material that reflects this sensitivity: white wax. For her, wax is not merely a substance, but a living material. Her encounter with haze wax in 2022 led to numerous experiments aimed at finding blends that would allow her to sculpt this highly singular, plant-based material. She now wishes to continue this exploration, focusing on wax, hazé trees, and other materials unique to Japan—such as rice wax, washi paper, and sumi ink sticks. The resulting body of work will highlight the poetry of the creative process itself, with the final pieces acting as mirrors of original artifacts—echoes of their memory and transformation.

 

 

 

Théo Mouzard et Marine Royer (2025, architecture/landscape architecture/urbanism)

 

The architecture of afterwards – Post-disaster care and repair in rural Japan: from resource to place, from landscape to object

Since the triple disaster of 2011, the themes of care and repair appear to have led to a reconfiguration of the practices of certain Japanese architects and designers. As part of an ecological redirection, it has become imperative to rethink the ways in which the architectural profession is practiced, especially in a context where new construction is no longer seen as the most desirable option. This calls for the exploration of more frugal strategies, particularly those aimed at transforming collective spaces through the active involvement of local communities. These approaches are evident both in Japan and in Europe, through direct engagement in the field, the use of collaborative practices, and a reflection on the resources and know-how specific to the territories undergoing transformation.

 

Mark Geffriaud

 

Traditional Japanese architecture, a contemporary ecology

 

Mark Geffriaud works with sculpture, photography, film, and performance. During the first months of his residency, while exploring abandoned traditional houses and ruined logging forests, he gradually moved away from a project-driven approach to open himself up to coincidences and encounters, which began to multiply as he pursued his research. What interests him most now is the quality of attention and care — towards both people and objects — that he observed being practiced everywhere in Japan, and which he now wishes to experience himself in some way. He now wishes to avoid intentions, follow the seasonality of ideas, and perhaps, with a bit of luck, find a few accidental sculptures.

 

Krikor Kouchian 

 

As part of the sister city program* between Kumamoto and Aix-en-Provence, Villa Kujoyama has established a post-residency program allowing one of its residents to continue research in Kumamoto and present their work in Aix-en-Provence.
During his stay in Kumamoto in September 2025, Krikor Kouchian made field recordings in the region, led a synthesizer workshop at Shiritsu Shirakawa Elementary School, and took part in an improvised concert with the Kyushu electronic music community in Fukuoka. For Nuit Blanche KYOTO, he will present his residency experience, and propose a duo performance with Hideaki Yamada, drummer of the band Kukangendai and manager of the multidisciplinary venue Soto in Kyoto. This improvised performance will draw inspiration from the album COMMUTERS, which sits at the crossroads of dub and nowave sound aesthetics.
Krikor Kouchian will then be in residence for one week in Aix-en-Provence in November. At the heart of the Vasarely Foundation, he will hold a restitution performance and lead a workshop with students from the art school.

*In 1992, Kano Shuho, a Noh artist living in the city of Kumamoto, donated a cypress Noh stage to Aix-en-Provence, and since then, exchanges have continued both at the private and administrative levels.

Nina Fradet

At the intersection of craft, dance, music, and digital arts, Matter & Body presents a dialogue between the living and the inanimate. Conceived around the encounter of two bodies with a woven wooden sculpture, the performance unfolds in real time through a shared understanding between all participants, both on stage and backstage. Drawings made on a graphic tablet are transformed into digital visuals and projected onto the stage, becoming a form of light that guides the dancers or alters the perception of their movements, in sync with the soundscape’s generated musical frequencies. As each medium is manipulated live, the performance strikes a balance between composition and improvisation, allowing body and material to merge into one another. This project was developed during Nina Fradet’s 2024 residency at Villa Kujoyama. The creation continued in 2025 with support from Fondation franco-japonaise Sasakawa, the Institut français, the Institut français du Japon, and the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation.

Maguelone Vidal 

Workshop « Faire avec »

Sharing this art of encounter that is improvisation—through one’s voice, body, texts, or musical instrument(s)—raises several questions: How do we engage with others? How can we build a shared language together, here and now, in a chosen performance space? How do we work with our own technical background to shift from a writing-based learning process to spontaneous oral expression or to a contemporary form of writing? Finally, how can we embrace our unique scenic, physical, musical, and vocal identity—and develop it both as a solo performer and within a collective?

Visuel : La nuit les esprits dansent @Darius Dolatyari-Dolatdoust (2025, danse)