9-Day Screen Week to Showcase Video Works by 17 Emerging Artists, Including Yu Araki, Umi Ishihara, and Aya Momose!
Key facts
- 9-Day Screen Week to Showcase Video Works by 17 Emerging Artists, Including Yu Araki, Umi Ishihara, and Aya Momose!
- BUG, an art center operated by Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd., will host 'In-dividual Theater: BUG Screen Week 2026' for nine days starting July 3, 2026, at its facility next to Tokyo Station. The event will screen video works by 17 emerging artists, including Yu Araki, Umi Ishihara, and Aya Momose. The purpose is to support artists who create video works that are difficult to sell or collect and thus struggle to achieve economic circulation. Several talk events with artists and guests will also be held during the period.
- Source: PR Times
- Date: May 28, 2026
Direct answer
BUG, an art center operated by Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd., will host 'In-dividual Theater: BUG Screen Week 2026' for nine days starting July 3, 2026, at its facility next to Tokyo Station. The event will screen video works by 17 emerging artists, including Yu Araki, Umi Ishihara, and Aya Momose. The purpose is to support artists who create video works that are difficult to sell or collect and thus struggle to achieve economic circulation. Several talk events with artists and guests will also be held during the period.
- Citation
- 9-Day Screen Week to Showcase Video Works by 17 Emerging Artists, Including Yu Araki, Umi Ishihara, and Aya Momose! (May 28, 2026), PR Times
- Source
- PR Times
- Date
- May 28, 2026
BUG, an art center operated by Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd., will host 'In-dividual Theater: BUG Screen Week 2026' for nine days starting July 3, 2026, at its facility next to Tokyo Station. The event will screen video works by 17 emerging artists, including Yu Araki, Umi Ishihara, and Aya Momose. The purpose is to support artists who create video works that are difficult to sell or collect and thus struggle to achieve economic circulation. Several talk events with artists and guests will also be held during the period.
📋 Article Processing Timeline
- 📰 Published: May 28, 2026 at 11:00
- 🔍 Collected: June 1, 2026 at 01:29 (86h 29m after Published)
- 🤖 AI Analyzed: June 2, 2026 at 08:04 (30h 34m after Collected)
BUG, operated by Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd., will hold 'In-dividual Theater: BUG Screen Week 2026' starting Friday, July 3, 2026. In this program, we will screen video works by 17 artists selected by our staff, attempting to support artists' careers within a new framework.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Statement
----------------------------------------------------------------------
At Tokyo Station, where 1.26 million people pass through daily, a countless number of people hurry through the station premises. Aiming for their destinations as if transporting their bodies, can one even look aside or stop amidst the daily downpour of tasks? Right next to such a Tokyo Station, on the first floor of an office building, lies BUG as an 'art center.' Even if you can't stop within the station, here you can sit down, and there's no need for a paid admission ticket.
That being said, there is no guarantee that watching a single video work here will change anything. However, the possibility of change is certainly there. We are betting on it. An opportunity to encounter values you've never touched before, phenomena outside your perception, and emotions that have been sleeping in the depths of your heart. You try to digest what you've seen here, to let your thoughts wander. You try to reclaim your own outline. You scrutinize what is happening in society. You imagine the background of incomprehensible words and actions. You gain the strength to struggle and resist in an attempt to change something.
We hope that the works of these 17 artists, who turn their eyes to marginalized and invisible voices and existences, or who try to slip through and resist the system in their own ways, will be such a catalyst. We are launching this space as a theater.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Three Features
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Support for artists who create video works that are difficult to market
Video works are a form of art with high hurdles for sales and collection, making it difficult to create an economic cycle. At BUG, which operates as a non-profit, we actively shine a light on such expressions. This time, we will support artists' activities by screening their existing video works and paying them for it.
2. Creating an environment to engage with video works
Although there are many opportunities to encounter video works, situations where one 'cannot watch a work from beginning to end' due to time constraints often occur. This time, by publishing the screening timetable in advance and designing a space that assumes long stays, we will create an environment where you can engage with the works from start to finish.
*Please check the website for the screening timetable.
3. An opportunity to re-examine existing works
Until now, BUG has provided artists with production costs and artist fees, creating many opportunities to produce and present new works. On the other hand, we believe it is also important to have opportunities to re-examine and introduce works created in the past and to pay for them.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Participating Artists (in alphabetical order)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yu ARAKI
Cici Wu with Yuan Yuan
Shun IKEZOE
Umi ISHIHARA
hayate Kobayashi
Masashi KOHARA
KYUNCHOME
Maya Erin Masuda
Aya MOMOSE
Kosuke NAGATA
Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani
Masanobu NISHINO
OLTA
Kouta SHIGA
Mari SHIRAKAWA
Soh SOUEN
Takuya WATANABE
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Related Events
----------------------------------------------------------------------
During the exhibition period, events featuring the exhibiting artists and guests will be held.
*Additional event information and participation details will be updated on the 'Events' page of the exhibition website.
July 3, 2026 (Fri) Talk Event: Maya Erin Masuda × Kimiyo Ogawa
July 4, 2026 (Sat) Talk Event: Maya Erin Masuda × Aya Momose
July 8, 2026 (Wed) Talk Event: Masashi Kohara × Chikako Yamashiro
July 9, 2026 (Thu) Talk Event: Umi Ishihara × Kouta Shiga
July 10, 2026 (Fri) Talk Event: Umi Ishihara × Yuki Saiki
July 12, 2026 (Sun) Talk Event: Yu Araki × Masanobu Nishino
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Artist Profiles & Past Work Images
----------------------------------------------------------------------
◯ Yu ARAKI
Artist and filmmaker. Graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, with a BFA in Sculpture in 2007. Completed his MFA in Media Arts at Tokyo University of the Arts, Graduate School of Film and New Media in 2010. He has a strong interest in cultural transmission, cross-cultural encounters, and the potential of mistranslations and misunderstandings that arise in the process. In his recent video installations, he explores the discrepancies between historical events and imagination through techniques of re-enactment, re-staging, and re-production.
《ROAD MOVIE》 2024
◯ Cici Wu with Yuan Yuan
Cici Wu [武雨濛]: Works in various media, including drawing, video, sculpture, installation, and found objects. Often starting from local histories and archives, she uses a cinematic frame as a means to consider and reflect on how transcendent narratives of social, cultural, and historical belonging shape our self-experience.
Yuan Yuan [袁远]: Uses text, video, and photography to explore the sense of belonging and alienation experienced by humans on both collective and individual levels. Yuan's practice explores the connections between artificial structures and the natural world, questioning how we position ourselves within landscapes, memories, emotions, and larger systems, often challenging anthropocentric perspectives.
《Belonging and Difference》 2023
Courtesy of the artists and Empty Gallery
◯ Shun IKEZOE
Born in Kagawa Prefecture in 1988, raised in Osaka, and based in Tokyo. Filmmaker and artist. To create films about those whose voices are often left unheard in society and history, he collects personal stories and memories and reconstructs them into universal narratives. He presents films and installation works using various media such as film and digital, and is active both in Japan and internationally, crossing the domains of cinema and contemporary art.
《Spectrum》 (work in progress) 2025
◯ Umi ISHIHARA
Filmmaker/artist based in London and Kitakyushu. She works on video productions that document the communities and life histories of people outside of social structures. Her practice involves intersecting personal memories with social issues, creating works together with non-professional actors such as familiar people and local residents.
《Gekirai (Fierce Thunder)》 2024
◯ hayate Kobayashi
Born in 1995. Based in Kyoto. Completed his MFA in Media Arts at Tokyo University of the Arts, Graduate School of Film and New Media. Lived in Berlin, Germany from 2020 to 2024. Completed his postgraduate studies in Art and Media at the Berlin University of the Arts in 2024. Through installations, video, poetry, and performance, he reconsiders new forms of narrative for exophony (the general state of being outside one's native language). Based on his experience of language falling apart in Germany, his recent works focus on the linguistic sense of the outsider/migrant.
《dailylog》 2021-2022
◯ Masashi KOHARA
Associate Professor at Tokyo Polytechnic University. As a researcher at the IZU PHOTO MUSEUM, he curated exhibitions such as 'Fuji Genkei' (2011), 'Manabu Miyazaki: The Pencil of Nature' (2013), and 'Tazuko Masuyama: Until Everything Becomes a Photograph' (2014). Later, as a freelancer, he curated exhibitions like 'Exposition of Spectacles' (Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions, 2022). His publications include 'Festival of the Empire: Expositions and the 'Human Displays'' and 'War and Peace: What 'Reportage Photography' Wanted to Convey about Japan,' and 'Detective of the Forest.'
《The Man Who Became a Camera: Photographer Takuma Nakahira》 2003
◯ KYUNCHOME
Kyunchome is an art unit formed in 2011 by Eri Homma and Nabuchi. They perceive art as a 'new form of prayer' and create poetic and humorous works around the world.
《Until My Voice Goes Hoarse》 2019
◯ Maya Erin Masuda
A queer artistic researcher based in Berlin, Tokyo, and The Hague. Her practice focuses on cyborg theory, desire as resistance, and queer ecology, constructing narratives in collaboration with non-human entities such as milk circulation, contaminated plants, and artificial skin. Maya's work departs from her own experiences with queer reproduction, hormone therapy, and gender norms, presenting forms of interspecies solidarity as acts of care and resistance.
《A Planet in My Skin / All Small Fragments of You》 2025
◯ Aya MOMOSE
Born in Tokyo in 1988. Completed her MFA in Oil Painting at Musashino Art University in 2013. Centered on video and performance, she reconsiders the multi-layered nature of communication with others and the relationship between the individual body and the state. In recent years, she has been attempting to reinterpret myths and classics through the individual body, using feminist theory.
《Embracing a Goat / Poor Grammar》 2016
◯ Kosuke NAGATA
Born in Aichi Prefecture in 1990, based in Kanagawa. Interested in the binary oppositions that support modern thought, such as self and other, nature and culture, body and environment, as well as the ambiguity lurking within them, he creates photography, video, and installations. Recently, he has been presenting video essays and course-meal-style performances on issues such as the formation of national identity in food culture, bodily techniques and power relations in dining etiquette, and the management of plant and animal life in food production.
《Becoming a Salmon》 2025
◯ Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani
A Berlin-based artist duo who have been collaborating since 1995. Their practice, incorporating interventional and situationist methods, is situated at the intersection of art, science, and technology. Using time-based media such as video, sound, and interactive installations, they explore the psychosocial impacts of climate change through cross-disciplinary research, including the perspectives of non-human beings. Their work questions anthropocentric narratives, focusing on the interconnectedness of all life, and attempts to give an imaginary voice to ecosystems, species, and non-human entities affected by environmental change.
《Intermundis》 2025
◯ Masanobu NISHINO
Museum and video director. He creates in a style that presents the sense of unease felt in daily life as a new perspective for considering the everyday. His methods are diverse, ranging from video to three-dimensional works, without being limited to a specific medium. He also works as a video director, handling many art-related video productions for museums and art festivals.
《Stop Talking, Be Quiet》 2022
◯ OLTA
An artist collective formed in 2009. The members are Toru Inoue, Takafumi Saito, Yoshiro Hasegawa, Megu Ninja, and Jang-Chi. In recent years, they have presented cross-disciplinary works at art festivals, theaters, and museums both in Japan and abroad, creating experiences that involve the audience and shake the boundaries between present and past, real and fictional, gender, and nations with a rebellious playfulness.
《Copied Laughter》 2016
◯ Kouta SHIGA
Born in Tokyo in 1998. Based in Tokyo. Currently a doctoral student at Tokyo University of the Arts, Graduate School of Fine Arts. He creates video works that reconfigure systems and historical contexts that have defined cities and bodies by appropriating them through performance and narrative. In recent years, he has presented installations set in a temporarily constructed baseball stadium from the occupation period and a fictional underground courthouse. He re-examines the nature of the subject through 'play.' He also organizes independent film and publishing projects.
《Spiral Jetty Monja》 2024-2025
◯ Mari SHIRAKAWA
Born in Fuji City, Shizuoka Prefecture in 1998. Graduated from Tama Art University's Oil Painting Department in 2023. Currently enrolled in the Master's program in Intermedia Art at Tokyo University of the Arts. Interested in fictional characters and their bodies, she creates video and performance works. She re-examines the relationship between characters and humans, and attempts to break away from behaviors of the body premised on production by re-importing body representations from otaku culture into the real body.
《I Want to Be Kind》 2023
◯ Soh SOUEN
Based in Fukuoka. He creates many works that delve into human nature through phenomena closely related to life, such as 'breathing,' 'navel,' and 'egg.' In recent years, he has regarded 'breathing' as the most fundamental movement that transforms the world, presenting workshops, installations, and performances both in Japan and internationally. Projects with Sarah Milio that began during the COVID-19 pandemic, and at Ginza Hermès F
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Statement
----------------------------------------------------------------------
At Tokyo Station, where 1.26 million people pass through daily, a countless number of people hurry through the station premises. Aiming for their destinations as if transporting their bodies, can one even look aside or stop amidst the daily downpour of tasks? Right next to such a Tokyo Station, on the first floor of an office building, lies BUG as an 'art center.' Even if you can't stop within the station, here you can sit down, and there's no need for a paid admission ticket.
That being said, there is no guarantee that watching a single video work here will change anything. However, the possibility of change is certainly there. We are betting on it. An opportunity to encounter values you've never touched before, phenomena outside your perception, and emotions that have been sleeping in the depths of your heart. You try to digest what you've seen here, to let your thoughts wander. You try to reclaim your own outline. You scrutinize what is happening in society. You imagine the background of incomprehensible words and actions. You gain the strength to struggle and resist in an attempt to change something.
We hope that the works of these 17 artists, who turn their eyes to marginalized and invisible voices and existences, or who try to slip through and resist the system in their own ways, will be such a catalyst. We are launching this space as a theater.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Three Features
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Support for artists who create video works that are difficult to market
Video works are a form of art with high hurdles for sales and collection, making it difficult to create an economic cycle. At BUG, which operates as a non-profit, we actively shine a light on such expressions. This time, we will support artists' activities by screening their existing video works and paying them for it.
2. Creating an environment to engage with video works
Although there are many opportunities to encounter video works, situations where one 'cannot watch a work from beginning to end' due to time constraints often occur. This time, by publishing the screening timetable in advance and designing a space that assumes long stays, we will create an environment where you can engage with the works from start to finish.
*Please check the website for the screening timetable.
3. An opportunity to re-examine existing works
Until now, BUG has provided artists with production costs and artist fees, creating many opportunities to produce and present new works. On the other hand, we believe it is also important to have opportunities to re-examine and introduce works created in the past and to pay for them.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Participating Artists (in alphabetical order)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yu ARAKI
Cici Wu with Yuan Yuan
Shun IKEZOE
Umi ISHIHARA
hayate Kobayashi
Masashi KOHARA
KYUNCHOME
Maya Erin Masuda
Aya MOMOSE
Kosuke NAGATA
Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani
Masanobu NISHINO
OLTA
Kouta SHIGA
Mari SHIRAKAWA
Soh SOUEN
Takuya WATANABE
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Related Events
----------------------------------------------------------------------
During the exhibition period, events featuring the exhibiting artists and guests will be held.
*Additional event information and participation details will be updated on the 'Events' page of the exhibition website.
July 3, 2026 (Fri) Talk Event: Maya Erin Masuda × Kimiyo Ogawa
July 4, 2026 (Sat) Talk Event: Maya Erin Masuda × Aya Momose
July 8, 2026 (Wed) Talk Event: Masashi Kohara × Chikako Yamashiro
July 9, 2026 (Thu) Talk Event: Umi Ishihara × Kouta Shiga
July 10, 2026 (Fri) Talk Event: Umi Ishihara × Yuki Saiki
July 12, 2026 (Sun) Talk Event: Yu Araki × Masanobu Nishino
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Artist Profiles & Past Work Images
----------------------------------------------------------------------
◯ Yu ARAKI
Artist and filmmaker. Graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, with a BFA in Sculpture in 2007. Completed his MFA in Media Arts at Tokyo University of the Arts, Graduate School of Film and New Media in 2010. He has a strong interest in cultural transmission, cross-cultural encounters, and the potential of mistranslations and misunderstandings that arise in the process. In his recent video installations, he explores the discrepancies between historical events and imagination through techniques of re-enactment, re-staging, and re-production.
《ROAD MOVIE》 2024
◯ Cici Wu with Yuan Yuan
Cici Wu [武雨濛]: Works in various media, including drawing, video, sculpture, installation, and found objects. Often starting from local histories and archives, she uses a cinematic frame as a means to consider and reflect on how transcendent narratives of social, cultural, and historical belonging shape our self-experience.
Yuan Yuan [袁远]: Uses text, video, and photography to explore the sense of belonging and alienation experienced by humans on both collective and individual levels. Yuan's practice explores the connections between artificial structures and the natural world, questioning how we position ourselves within landscapes, memories, emotions, and larger systems, often challenging anthropocentric perspectives.
《Belonging and Difference》 2023
Courtesy of the artists and Empty Gallery
◯ Shun IKEZOE
Born in Kagawa Prefecture in 1988, raised in Osaka, and based in Tokyo. Filmmaker and artist. To create films about those whose voices are often left unheard in society and history, he collects personal stories and memories and reconstructs them into universal narratives. He presents films and installation works using various media such as film and digital, and is active both in Japan and internationally, crossing the domains of cinema and contemporary art.
《Spectrum》 (work in progress) 2025
◯ Umi ISHIHARA
Filmmaker/artist based in London and Kitakyushu. She works on video productions that document the communities and life histories of people outside of social structures. Her practice involves intersecting personal memories with social issues, creating works together with non-professional actors such as familiar people and local residents.
《Gekirai (Fierce Thunder)》 2024
◯ hayate Kobayashi
Born in 1995. Based in Kyoto. Completed his MFA in Media Arts at Tokyo University of the Arts, Graduate School of Film and New Media. Lived in Berlin, Germany from 2020 to 2024. Completed his postgraduate studies in Art and Media at the Berlin University of the Arts in 2024. Through installations, video, poetry, and performance, he reconsiders new forms of narrative for exophony (the general state of being outside one's native language). Based on his experience of language falling apart in Germany, his recent works focus on the linguistic sense of the outsider/migrant.
《dailylog》 2021-2022
◯ Masashi KOHARA
Associate Professor at Tokyo Polytechnic University. As a researcher at the IZU PHOTO MUSEUM, he curated exhibitions such as 'Fuji Genkei' (2011), 'Manabu Miyazaki: The Pencil of Nature' (2013), and 'Tazuko Masuyama: Until Everything Becomes a Photograph' (2014). Later, as a freelancer, he curated exhibitions like 'Exposition of Spectacles' (Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions, 2022). His publications include 'Festival of the Empire: Expositions and the 'Human Displays'' and 'War and Peace: What 'Reportage Photography' Wanted to Convey about Japan,' and 'Detective of the Forest.'
《The Man Who Became a Camera: Photographer Takuma Nakahira》 2003
◯ KYUNCHOME
Kyunchome is an art unit formed in 2011 by Eri Homma and Nabuchi. They perceive art as a 'new form of prayer' and create poetic and humorous works around the world.
《Until My Voice Goes Hoarse》 2019
◯ Maya Erin Masuda
A queer artistic researcher based in Berlin, Tokyo, and The Hague. Her practice focuses on cyborg theory, desire as resistance, and queer ecology, constructing narratives in collaboration with non-human entities such as milk circulation, contaminated plants, and artificial skin. Maya's work departs from her own experiences with queer reproduction, hormone therapy, and gender norms, presenting forms of interspecies solidarity as acts of care and resistance.
《A Planet in My Skin / All Small Fragments of You》 2025
◯ Aya MOMOSE
Born in Tokyo in 1988. Completed her MFA in Oil Painting at Musashino Art University in 2013. Centered on video and performance, she reconsiders the multi-layered nature of communication with others and the relationship between the individual body and the state. In recent years, she has been attempting to reinterpret myths and classics through the individual body, using feminist theory.
《Embracing a Goat / Poor Grammar》 2016
◯ Kosuke NAGATA
Born in Aichi Prefecture in 1990, based in Kanagawa. Interested in the binary oppositions that support modern thought, such as self and other, nature and culture, body and environment, as well as the ambiguity lurking within them, he creates photography, video, and installations. Recently, he has been presenting video essays and course-meal-style performances on issues such as the formation of national identity in food culture, bodily techniques and power relations in dining etiquette, and the management of plant and animal life in food production.
《Becoming a Salmon》 2025
◯ Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani
A Berlin-based artist duo who have been collaborating since 1995. Their practice, incorporating interventional and situationist methods, is situated at the intersection of art, science, and technology. Using time-based media such as video, sound, and interactive installations, they explore the psychosocial impacts of climate change through cross-disciplinary research, including the perspectives of non-human beings. Their work questions anthropocentric narratives, focusing on the interconnectedness of all life, and attempts to give an imaginary voice to ecosystems, species, and non-human entities affected by environmental change.
《Intermundis》 2025
◯ Masanobu NISHINO
Museum and video director. He creates in a style that presents the sense of unease felt in daily life as a new perspective for considering the everyday. His methods are diverse, ranging from video to three-dimensional works, without being limited to a specific medium. He also works as a video director, handling many art-related video productions for museums and art festivals.
《Stop Talking, Be Quiet》 2022
◯ OLTA
An artist collective formed in 2009. The members are Toru Inoue, Takafumi Saito, Yoshiro Hasegawa, Megu Ninja, and Jang-Chi. In recent years, they have presented cross-disciplinary works at art festivals, theaters, and museums both in Japan and abroad, creating experiences that involve the audience and shake the boundaries between present and past, real and fictional, gender, and nations with a rebellious playfulness.
《Copied Laughter》 2016
◯ Kouta SHIGA
Born in Tokyo in 1998. Based in Tokyo. Currently a doctoral student at Tokyo University of the Arts, Graduate School of Fine Arts. He creates video works that reconfigure systems and historical contexts that have defined cities and bodies by appropriating them through performance and narrative. In recent years, he has presented installations set in a temporarily constructed baseball stadium from the occupation period and a fictional underground courthouse. He re-examines the nature of the subject through 'play.' He also organizes independent film and publishing projects.
《Spiral Jetty Monja》 2024-2025
◯ Mari SHIRAKAWA
Born in Fuji City, Shizuoka Prefecture in 1998. Graduated from Tama Art University's Oil Painting Department in 2023. Currently enrolled in the Master's program in Intermedia Art at Tokyo University of the Arts. Interested in fictional characters and their bodies, she creates video and performance works. She re-examines the relationship between characters and humans, and attempts to break away from behaviors of the body premised on production by re-importing body representations from otaku culture into the real body.
《I Want to Be Kind》 2023
◯ Soh SOUEN
Based in Fukuoka. He creates many works that delve into human nature through phenomena closely related to life, such as 'breathing,' 'navel,' and 'egg.' In recent years, he has regarded 'breathing' as the most fundamental movement that transforms the world, presenting workshops, installations, and performances both in Japan and internationally. Projects with Sarah Milio that began during the COVID-19 pandemic, and at Ginza Hermès F
FAQ
Are there any free art events to enjoy near Tokyo Station?
Yes, from July 3rd for 9 days in 2026, the 'In-dividual Theater: BUG Screen Week 2026' will be held at BUG, next to Tokyo Station. You can view video works by 17 artists for free.
Where is the BUG art center and how can I get there?
BUG is located on the first floor of an office building right next to Tokyo Station, which is used by 1.26 million people daily, making it very convenient to access.
Who is this event recommended for?
It is recommended for those interested in contemporary art and video works, those who want to experience new values and expressions, and those who wish to spend cultural time around Tokyo Station.
Is there a chance to meet the artists during the event?
Yes, several talk events featuring the participating artists are scheduled during the event period. Please check the official website for details.
Why does this event specialize in video works?
The event focuses on video works because they have high hurdles for sales and collection, making them economically challenging. BUG aims to actively highlight these works and support the artists' activities.