In conjunction with the exhibition Grilled Diagrams, artist Aki Sasamoto’s first solo institutional exhibition in the UK, Japan House London collaborates with Studio Voltaire on a special event at its Clapham venue. The event features a live performance by Sasamoto within the exhibition space, followed by a conversation with Keiko Okamura, Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT).

Drawing inspiration from televised cooking shows and street food carts, Sasamoto’s performance unfolds as a live, improvised act of movement and drawing. It centres on a custom-built, oversized griddle and the seemingly unremarkable yet intricate manipulation of ingredients across the griddle’s surface, visible in a three-metre-long angled mirror.

Following the performance, Sasamoto and Okamura convene in the gallery for a conversation. Having recently worked together on Sasamoto’s mid-career retrospective at MOT, Life Laboratory, the artist and Okamura discuss the development of Sasamoto’s new commission within the context of her broader practice.

Co-organised by Studio Voltaire and Japan House London, the event is introduced by Sam Thorne, Director General & CEO of Japan House London.

Event Timings:
14:00–15:00 Performance
15:00–15:30 Break
15:30–16:30 In conversation

Note: Japanese names on Japan House London’s website are usually shown family name first. For this event, we follow the co-organizer’s format and list given name first.

Image: Aki Sasamoto, Point Reflection, 2023–2024. Performance at the Queens Museum. Photo courtesy of the artist and Queens Museum. Credit Hai Zhang. 

 

About the speakers

Aki Sasamoto (b. 1980, Kanagawa, Japan), lives and works in New York. Key solo exhibitions include Museum of Tokyo (2025); Para Site, Hong Kong (2024); Queens Museum, New York (2023-2024); the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York (2023); The Kitchen, New York (2017); and SculptureCenter, New York (2016). She has participated widely in international exhibitions including the 59th Venice Biennale (2022); Aichi Triennale (2022); Busan Biennale (2022); Okayama Art Summit (2022); Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2016); Yokohama Triennale (2008); and the Whitney Biennial (2010). Sasamoto received the Calder Prize in 2023.

Keiko Okamura is a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT). Okamura curated Aki Sasamoto’s Life Laboratory, the first mid-career retrospective for the artist, held at MOT in 2025. She previously worked at MOT from 1995 to 2007. From 2007 to 2021 she oversaw the moving image section at the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum. During her time there she initiated the inaugural edition of the annual Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions in 2009 and contributed as either director or curator to every subsequent edition through her departure. She also curated exhibitions including Fiona Tan: Terminology (2014), Her Own Way—Female Artists and the Moving Image in Art in Poland: From 1970s to the Present (2019), and Yamashiro Chikako: Reframing the land/mind/body-scape (2021).