Aki Sasamoto performance followed by a conversation with Keiko Okamura

A live performance by Aki Sasamoto, followed by an in conversation with Keiko Okamura, curator of Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT).

Drawing inspiration from televised cooking shows and street food carts, Sasamoto’s performance will unfold as a live, improvised act of movement and drawing. One of four performances taking place over the course of the exhibition, each will centre around 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 will convene in the gallery for an in conversation. Having recently worked together on Sasamoto’s mid-career retrospective at MOT, titled Life Laboratory, the artist and Okamura will discuss the development of Sasamoto’s new commission within the context of the artist’s broader practice.

Co-organised with Japan House London, the event will be introduced by Sam Thorne, Director General of Japan House London.

Event Timings:

2-3 pm: Performance
3-3.30 pm: Break
3.30-4.30 pm: In conversation

This event is part of Grilled Diagrams, a major new commission by Aki Sasamoto (b. 1980, Kanagawa, Japan). The exhibition comprises a site-sensitive installation that developed from Sasamoto’s observations of daily life, as well as her curiosity about systems and processes– in this case, the experience of cooking large quantities of food on outdoor griddles. Incorporating everyday items and contemporary detritus, her meticulously staged installation functions as a prompt or score for structured improvisation: challenging conventional definitions of sculpture and instead inviting active participation in her unfolding narratives.

Sasamoto’s work incisively probes the tension between disorder and control. Her performances, which are often staged as vivid and digressive monologues, weave together fables, anecdotes and autobiographical fragments, inviting her audiences to retune their perceptions of the seemingly mundane.

About Aki Sasamoto

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.

About Keiko Okamura

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).

Access

If you have any questions or need assistance with your visit, please feel welcome to contact us at +44 (0) 20 7622 1294 or [email protected]. Read Studio Voltaire's full access information here.

Image credit

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

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