The Japan Foundation Fellowship for Arts and Culture in Asia (Visual Arts) - List of Fellows for Fiscal 2025-26

Lives and works in Saigon and Hanoi, Vietnam

Phương Linh Nguyễn’s multidisciplinary practice spans video, installation and sculpture. She is interested in interrogating the geographic cultural shifts; tracing fragmented and ambiguous history in Vietnam - a complex nexus of ethnicities, religions, cultural and geo-political influences. Her work contemplates upon the visible/invisible truth, form and time, weight and void, conveying a pervasive sense of dislocation, endurance, and ephemerality Phương Linh’s works have been featured in various local and international exhibitions, including Listening To The Overtones of Fissure Green Island Taiwan 2023, Asian Pacific Triennial 2021, the Singapore Biennale, Kuandu Biennale Taipei, Shanghai Biennale 2016 and HIWAR Darat AL Funnun Jordan 2014. She won the Han Nefkens Foundation-BACC Award for Contemporary Art 2017.

Phương Linh was born and raised in Nhà Sàn Studio – based in her father’s home, it’s considered one of the longest established non-profit artist-run spaces in Hanoi. In 2013, she co-founded and since then has been co-directing Nhà Sàn Collective with her artist friends. Together, they participated in Documenta 15 curated by Ruangrupa in 2022.

Born in 1992.

Meita earned a bachelor's degree in education from the Department of Fine Arts Education at the State University of Jakarta in 2016 and a master’s in fine arts from the Artwork Creation Study Program at the Bandung Institute of Technology in 2021.

Meita works as an artist and housewife. Her personal experiences as a woman, child, mother, and wife are the themes in her artwork. Meita uses embroidery as a medium in her work and applies it to various works of art such as installation art and participatory art. For her, embroidery is an intimate and personal process, which is related to various levels of social life. In 2021, Meita was selected as an artist in residency at the Leipzig International Art Program, Germany. Her work was selected to participate in the ARTJOG MMXXII exhibition; Arts in Common - Expanding Awareness 2022, and MANIFESTO VII: TRANSPOSITION, National Gallery of Indonesia, 2022. Meita has recently participated in FUJI TEXTILE WEEK 2025 in Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi, Japan. Meita received the Gold Prize Award Craft City Lab, Cheongju Craft International Competition, Cheongju Craft Biennale, Cheongju, South Korea 2023. Meita also initiated an art project entitled Archiving Memories in collaboration with female home-based workers in the textile area in Cigondewah, Bandung in 2023.

Khairul Nizan Mohd Aris is a Malaysian ceramic artist, designer, educator and arts researcher with more than 20 years of experience in ceramic education and creative practice. He is currently a Senior Lecturer at Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Malaysia.

Trained in Malaysia, Japan, the United Kingdom and Australia, his practice is rooted in sculpture and studio ceramics, with a focus on porcelain, functional tableware, ceramic sculpture, surface development and firing techniques. He creates handmade porcelain tableware for everyday use as well as one-off ceramic works for exhibitions.

His creative practice is closely connected to his research, particularly in the areas of ceramic materials, traditional knowledge, contemporary ceramic practice and surface experimentation. His colourful mark-making glaze technique explores the relationship between ceramics and abstract painting, treating the ceramic form as a different type of canvas.

Khairul Nizan has collaborated with artists, universities, cultural organisations and other international partners, particularly in Japan, as well as the United Kingdom, Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, Pakistan and Bangladesh. His international research and cultural exchanges focus on the development of contemporary ceramics while exploring traditional ceramic knowledge and heritage.

His work has been exhibited and presented in Malaysia, Japan, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Thailand and Australia. Through his combined roles as an artist, designer, educator and researcher, he continues to explore ceramics as a platform for creativity, cultural exchange, knowledge development and innovation.

Yoon Ei Kyaw (Ashlay) is a Myanmar born and raised urbanist and cultural practitioner with a background in architecture. She explores the intersections of space, art, culture, and everyday life, focusing on curating architecture and urbanism through creative and cultural practices.
With experience in architectural practice, public outreach for public-space revitalisation, curating, and cultural mapping, she runs PyitSuuPan Architecture and Urbanism Study Room, an independent initiative facilitating reading clubs and practice-based research through art and creative methods. Her current research focuses on SEN-friendly spaces and architecture and urbanism during times of crisis.

Nguyễn Tú Hằng is the Founder of Artist-in-Residence Vietnam Network (AiRViNe), dedicated to research on cultural mobility and residency programs, and Director at Hanoi Grapevine, a not-for-profit organisation supporting the artists' ecosystem.

She has extensive experience in communication consulting and research across various cultural projects in Vietnam. Nguyễn Vũ Tú Hằng holds a bachelor’s degree in international management from Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (Japan) and a master's in international business and East Asia Studies from Sogang University (South Korea). From 2014 to 2020, she published several short stories and poetry collections under the pen name Zelda. Since 2017, Hằng has collaborated with pioneering young music groups to organize classical concerts and recitals in churches and other unconventional, indie spaces. From 2020 to 2023, she served as the Curator of Education at Vincom Center for Contemporary Art (VCCA). In 2023, she co-founded ddur.production—an open collective providing specialized assistance for exhibition projects. In 2024, Hằng received the Special Award for The Professional Exchange Program 2024 SEA Art and Cultural Practitioners from Taiwan Asia Exchange Foundation (Taiwan), and a Fellowship for Conservation Treatment of Tangible Cultural Heritage from the Korea National University of Cultural Heritage (South Korea).

Lives and works in Hanoi.

Phan serves as a creative director at Tohe Social Enterprise, a Vietnamese social enterprise founded in 2006 with an original mission of creating creative playgrounds for disadvantaged children. She has led initiatives that integrate visual arts into education, organised exhibitions showcasing the talents of neurodivergent children, and spearheaded advocacy campaigns to raise awareness of social issues, particularly for people with disabilities.

She is also a guest lecturer on “Corporate Social Responsibility and Innovation” at Academy of Journalism and Communication (Hanoi, Vietnam).

Zelin Seah is a Malaysian visual artist and lecturer in fine art. Working across installation, mapping, printmaking and site-specific projects, his research- and material-based practice explores the intertwining of land, material traces and infrastructure. His recent research follows the transformation and circulation of resources, particularly oil palm residues, across Southeast Asia and transnational energy networks.

Seah was the UOB Painting of the Year Malaysia Top Winner in 2022. In 2025, he undertook residencies at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum and REFLEKT at SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, and held his solo exhibition This Land is ( ) Land at Richard Koh Fine Art, Singapore. In 2026, he participated in the Goethe-Institut’s regional project Dealing in Distance, presented across Southeast Asia.

His works are held in the collections of the Singapore Art Museum and the National Art Gallery Malaysia.

Lives in Angono, Rizal and Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines

Karl Castro is an artist, designer, and cultural worker whose transdisciplinary practice spans painting, weaving, collage, photo media, and exhibition-making. He traces architectures of power, memory, and image, unearthing the afterlives of Philippine modernisms and the erasure of marginalized histories through design and image-based inquiry. He has exhibited in the Philippines and Japan, and works with communities and institutions on projects bridging art, archives, and political questions. Castro has received recognition from the Philippine National Book Awards and other institutions. He is a lecturer at the Ateneo de Manila University, research head of Brutalist Pilipinas and Communication Design Association of the Philippines, and a board member of Concerned Artists of the Philippines.

Born in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. Graduated from Kyoto University of Art and Design. After working in Okinawa and London, currently based in Yokohama and Nagano.

Her practice focuses on bodily sensory organs, particularly “itching,” as her point of departure, exploring skin-based and visceral sensations. These bodily sensations are universally experienced, yet difficult to grasp or control. Through reflecting on them, her work examines how such perceptions are translated, inherited, or left unarticulated within human experience and society.
In recent years, she has engaged in the relationship between bodily sensation and social structures through the lens of the politics of sensation.
Her work spans installation and two-dimensional forms, employing a wide range of materials and media such as cotton fabric, postcards, sheet music, soil, resin, and robotic arms. Beginning in 2026, she conducted five months of fieldwork across Indonesia through a program of the Japan Foundation.

Her major solo exhibitions include “ANNUAL BRAKE 2025” (The 5th Floor, Tokyo, 2025), Selected group exhibitions include “Special Exhibition for the 900th Anniversary of the Foundation of Chiba: Moon, Stars and ...: When Art Links Time, People and Things" (Chiba City Museum of Art, Chiba, 2026), “Pattani Biennale 2026” (Prince of Songkla University, Thailand, 2026), “The 1st BUG Art Award Finalists” (BUG Art Center, Tokyo, 2024), and “The Vision of Contemporary Art 2023” (The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo, 2023).

“Arts Challenge 2022” (Aichi Arts Center, Aichi, Japan), “VOCA Exhibition 2023” (The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo, Japan), “Scraped Script” (gallery N, Kanda, Tokyo, Japan) 2024, “BUG Art Award Finalists” (BUG Art Center, Tokyo) 2024, “Regarding the Unlocatable Others” (The 5th Floor, Tokyo).

Born in 1992. He graduated from the Printmaking Course, Department of Painting, College of Art and Design, Musashino Art University. While at university, he was also active in the Waseda Expedition Club.

His practice explores encounters between different modes of existence and the movements of the world that arise from them. As part of his “Archipelagic Performance Practices,” he repeats shared protocols related to acts of carrying across multiple locations. His major projects include Octopus Mikoshi, in which eight people gather and imagine themselves as an octopus; Tire Pulling, in which he walks around southern islands as an unfamiliar other; and Tansu no Dance (Chest Dance), in which he carries a deceased person’s chest of drawers to the sea. He also directs octopus∞projects, a platform dedicated to open-sourcing Octopus Mikoshi.