After withdrawing from the Art Planning program at Seian University of Art and Design, Maki Kawaguchi worked in agriculture. From 2009, she joined Art Area B1 in Nakanoshima, Osaka and was involved in producing exhibitions, music events, and performances. Kawaguchi presided as the director and secretary general there from 2013 to 2023. Since February 2023, she has worked in public relations in the Kyoto City Kyocera Museum. Independent of her work at the museum, she also collaborates with artists by organizing exhibitions.

Born in Hokkaido in 1995, kobayashi completed a Master Program in New Media at the Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts. Between 2020 and 2024, kobayashi stayed in Berlin, Germany, with the support of Ezoe Memorial Recruit Foundation Scholarship. In 2024, he graduated from Art and Media at the Berlin University of the Arts. With moving images and self-made apparatuses, kobayashi explores a new form of narrative of the Exophonie. In his recent practices, from the perspectives of the outsider migration, he focuses on the transborderers’ linguistic sensibility. Recent solo exhibition include Appeartus #1 (Chidori Bunka, Osaka, 2026) and Polyparole (Art Center BUG, Tokyo, 2024).

Born in 1987, Takuya Tsutsumi is a Kansai-based curator and graphic designer. He graduated with an MA in cultural studies from Adam Mickiewicz University in 2019. In addition to designing exhibition spaces, Tsutsumi creates one-off performative experiences and is particularly interested in non-institutional practices, especially across Asia. His directing and curatorial credits include Share-Meeting 2: The Successive Gathering and Momentum of Becoming (2025, Shiga), MEET YOUR ART FESTIVAL 2024: SSS—Super Spectrum Specification (Tokyo), Takuya Yamashita’s solo exhibition Hope Embedded in Darkness: Bear, Munch, Cheeseburger, and Others (2023, Taipei), and Aichi Triennale 2022. Tsutsumi is Program Co-director for the shared studio space Yamanaka Suplex, Program Director at ICA Kyoto, and an associate professor at Kyoto University of the Arts.

Kurachi Tomonosuke creates video installations based on critical views on entertainment, in which he directs and plays the leading role. He appropriates well-known forms of entertainment like TV dramas, music videos, or movies and slickly provokes laughter by imitating them, which he sees as an act of primitive exaggeration. His set and costume designs reflect everyday objects and they are made instantly. In this way, he converts the daily sphere into an amusing arena. Through improvising rhythmic vocalisations, he exposes absurdity out of meaning or meaninglessness. Kurachi asks himself questions about the nature of postmodern entertainment and humanity, practising artistic expression originated in laughter.

Nagara Wada graduated with a degree in film and performing arts from Kyoto University of Art and Design, and then completed the art studies master’s program at the same university. In February 2011, she began working as a theater director based in Kyoto and founded her own theatre unit, shitatame. With a deep interest in the act of acting, Wada deciphers texts and motifs as if zooming into them, aiming to establish a distinct language for acting with each performance. She actively pursues collaborative projects, and through the medium of theater, she connects with artists from various fields, including visual art, photography, architecture, music, sculpture, and dance. Since 2018, she has served as a member of the booking team for the multidisciplinary art space UrBANGUILD, where she organized 3CASTS, a performance series that focuses on actors. She is The Saison Foundation ‘Saison Fellow I’ from 2025 to 2026.

Izumi is a playwright and director, born in Osaka in 1996 and graduated from Osaka University of Education. He founded Usagi no Aegi while at university. Has written and directed most of the company’s productions since then. Izumi is also a staff member at Wingfield since 2022, where he has initiated theater criticism projects and workshops on safe rehearsal practices, while fostering the next generation of artists. Board member of DIVE Osaka Contemporary Performing Arts Association and the project member. Nominated as a finalist for the 23rd Aichi Arts Foundation Drama Award. He was awarded the Grand Prize at the 23rd Aichi Arts Foundation Drama Award.

Usagi no Aegi
Usagi no Aegi was founded by the playwright and director Sora Izumi and the producer Natsuki Nakasuji in 2017, and has been active in the Kansai region since. Exploring with the “lost sense of reality among modern people”, the company creates and presents works that are experimental and avant-garde, yet somehow have a nostalgic element. Those works are characterized by unique theatrical experience provided by the combination of fine texts that focus on the “pain and grief that were considered as not having been felt”, and the provocative staging that persuade the audience to think deeply. The company is selected to take part in ROHM Theatre Kyoto + Kyoto Art Center KIPPU Under 35 Creative Support Program 2026.