YAU OPEN STUDIO '26 will take place from March 13 (Friday) to 15 (Sunday), 2026, featuring approximately 10 programs across the Otemachi, Marunouchi, and Yurakucho districts. This three-day event offers the public an opportunity to experience the activities of YAU (Yurakucho Art Urbanism).
Engaging Exhibitions, Talks, and Workshops Across 10 Programs
Yurakucho Art Urbanism (YAU) serves as a platform for innovation centered on art. Operating in the Otemachi, Marunouchi, and Yurakucho (Daimaruyu) district, which leads Japan's economy, YAU has been practicing "Art Urbanism" since 2022. This approach integrates art into urban life to develop sustainable and creative urban activities. Over four years, from 2022 to January 2026, 1,356 artists have been active in the Daimaruyu district.
In its fourth year, YAU OPEN STUDIO '26 presents several notable projects. These include "Zenigame Sewerage Research Presentation vol.1: Holes," a collaboration with the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Sewerage that researches infrastructure systems essential to daily life. TALK NONSENSE presents their project "Reknitting the City," which attempts creative urban intervention through knitting as a physical act and production process. The event also features "Iwakan Azukaridokoro" (Repository for Feelings of Discomfort) by the All Humanity Question-Holding Project, a participatory art project that "receives" people's discomforts through public telephones installed on street corners.
These three artist groups will present the results of their activities in the district. Additionally, various programs including workshops and talk events will allow visitors to experience the Daimaruyu district through art.
YAU OPEN STUDIO '26 Event Overview
Dates: March 13 (Friday) to 15 (Sunday), 2026
Exhibition Hours: 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM (varies by event)
Venues:
- YAU STUDIO (Tokyo Express Highway North Yurakucho Building 1F, Room 16, 1-3 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo)
- YAU CENTER Zenigame (Zenigame Place, 1F Zenigameho Building, 2-6-3 Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo)
- Various locations throughout Otemachi, Marunouchi, and Yurakucho
Participating Artists: Tomoya Ishibashi, Kentaro Okumura, All Humanity Question-Holding Project (Kozuko Endo, Fumi Kishi, Suzuka Kishi, Moto Sato), So Takai, Takuya Takemoto, TALK NONSENSE, TOKYO PHOTOGRAPHIC RESEARCH (including Aimi Igarashi, Takanori Kawahara, Keita Kojima, Kenta Kobayashi, Nanako Kobayashi, Taisuke Koyama, Yuta Saito, Kota Shiga, Hideyuki Shimauchi, Shota Tsukiyama, Tatsuhiko Togashi, Hayahisa Tomiyasu, Mayumi Hosokura, Rina Maeda, Yuki Matsui (Takuya Sekikawa), and Marie Matsubara), among others
Website: https://arturbanism.jp/news/yauopenstudio2026/
Inquiries: YAU STUDIO info@arturbanism.jp
Event Highlights
① An Overview of YAU's Activities at One of Japan's Premier Business Districts
The event takes place in Otemachi, Marunouchi, and Yurakucho, a Japanese business center undergoing continuous value creation through experimental projects by Yurakucho Art Urbanism (YAU).
② Diverse Interaction Through Region-Based Research and Participatory Projects
Visitors can engage with various project styles, including region-based research projects, touring projects, and participatory initiatives.
③ Experience the Dynamism of the Daimaruyu District Through Art
Multiple art projects allow visitors to experience the dynamic nature of the Daimaruyu district firsthand.
Examining History and Urban Development in the Daimaruyu District
The Otemachi, Marunouchi, and Yurakucho area, commonly known as "Daimaruyu," has a long history as one of Japan's premier business districts. This urban hub features approximately 5,000 businesses (including 101 Prime Market listed company headquarters) and an estimated working population of around 350,000*, functioning as the center of the Japanese economy. Meanwhile, with its location adjacent to Tokyo Station and the Imperial Palace, and within walking distance of Ginza and Hibiya, the area has evolved into a district where diverse people, including international tourists, come and go.
Currently, the region is undergoing large-scale redevelopment. Projects such as the reconstruction of the Kokusai Building and Imperial Theatre Building, along with the Yurakucho Building and Shin-Yurakucho Building, mark a significant turning point for the district's landscape. Plans are underway to renew this area, which has over 100 years of history, into a sustainable international financial and business city.
*Based on Economic Census data (primarily using data through 2021)
What YAU's Activities Bring to a Dynamically Changing City
YAU is an abbreviation for Yurakucho Art Urbanism. This initiative practically explores urban life itself and approaches to urban development, with "Art Urbanism" as its core concept, which reinterprets the concept of "Urbanism" from an artistic perspective.
The stage for Yurakucho Art Urbanism is the Daimaruyu area, one of Japan's premier business districts and a junction point with Hibiya and Ginza. The project aims to create creative scenes for everyone who gathers here: business professionals, visitors, workers, and tourists.
Supporting this activity is a 19-member project team consisting of art managers, editors, photographers, architects, and other professionals with diverse expertise. While each member engages with the city through their specialized knowledge, they flexibly relocate their base among building complexes and vacant spaces being transformed through redevelopment. Currently, they operate in a space under the Tokyo Express Highway (KK Line), which served as part of the urban expressway network for approximately 60 years and closed as an automobile-exclusive road in 2025. Not fixed by urban changes but adapting and assimilating with the city itself, this practice represents a significant appeal of YAU as an active entity.
▼Members and Artists Active at YAU STUDIO Under the Tokyo Express Highway (KK Line) and Throughout the City
YAU OPEN STUDIO Content Highlights
[1] Zenigame Sewerage Research Presentation vol.1 "Holes"
This is the first research project at "YAU CENTER Zenigame," which opened in 2025 at the Zenigameho Building (Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku). Researchers with diverse backgrounds, including artists, musicians, editors, and photographers, have gathered to explore the sewer system, an essential lifeline that extends throughout the city but remains typically invisible to the public. Through fieldwork and research, this research exhibition presents individual perspectives on connections with the sewerage system.
Additionally, Tomoya Ishibashi, a research member who majored in biology at university and engages in artistic practice exploring the boundaries between nature and artifice and the nature of human technological endeavors, will exhibit new works created through fieldwork.
The sewage treatment system represents a crucial urban infrastructure where human knowledge in sophisticated civil engineering and scientific technology converges, while the power of microorganisms as decomposers is essential. Through this project, the research team and Tomoya Ishibashi focus on the theme "Observe," conducting research on pump stations that pump up sewage and water reclamation centers that continuously treat sewage day by day to restore it to clean water. During the YAU OPEN STUDIO period, they will share research findings focused on entry points to the sewerage system and holes scattered throughout the city - manholes and drainage outlets - through the exhibition "Holes," which also presents Ishibashi's new work.
Dates: March 13 (Friday) to 29 (Sunday), 12:00 PM to 7:00 PM
Closed: Mondays and Tuesdays
Location: YAU CENTER Zenigame
[2] TALK NONSENSE "Reknitting the City - Public Knitting Day"
This research-based project by TALK NONSENSE, a design/research team founded in 2024 in Tokyo by Shingo Kokaji and Yuki Oki, draws inspiration from the "Knitting Bee" held in New York's Central Park in 1918 during wartime. Citizens collaborated in public spaces to knit needed clothing. The project attempts this practice in modern-day Tokyo through a participatory exhibition and street-based workshops centered in Yurakucho.
Dates: March 13 (Friday) 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM / March 14 (Saturday) 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM
Capacity: 6 people per session
Fee: ¥6,500
Location: Various locations throughout Otemachi, Marunouchi, and Yurakucho
*Details will be published on the YAU website
Related Exhibition:
"Reknitting the City - Knits & Review / COPYROOM"
Part of TALK NONSENSE's research is made public as a "copy room," where visitors can freely print knitting patterns and adaptations using an installed copy machine. Moving between documentation and practice, past and present, individual hands and institutional history, visitors can reconsider the act of creating clothing from the same position as citizens of the past by reproducing knitting patterns once created by countless citizens with their own hands.
Dates: March 13 (Friday) to 15 (Sunday), 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM
Location: YAU STUDIO
[3] All Humanity Question-Holding Project "Iwakan Azukaridokoro" (Repository for Feelings of Discomfort)
The All Humanity Question-Holding Project, a collective that examines relationships with people and society through "questions," focuses on everyday feelings of discomfort while blending into urban life.
Through public telephones installed on street corners, this participatory art project "receives" discomforts that people hold in their daily lives by listening and responding to them. This exchange of voices surrounding discomfort provokes new dialogue starting from "not understanding" rather than empathy. By sharing questions among people with different positions and sensibilities, the project aims to transform urban space into a place for thinking and interaction.
Dates: March 13 (Friday) to 15 (Sunday), 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM
Location: YAU STUDIO
[4] YAU KIOSK vol.3 - So Takai "Semi-Deployed Trapping"
The third installment of "YAU KIOSK," a mobile program that has expanded YAU's activities into the city. Artist So Takai will move through the city with YAU KIOSK, presenting an exhibition that alternates between movement and stillness while engaging with surrounding people and events. This process, which drifts through the city, questions the boundaries between staying and moving.
Dates: March 13 (Friday) to 15 (Sunday), 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM
Location: Various locations throughout Otemachi, Marunouchi, and Yurakucho
*Details will be published on the YAU website
[5] YAU Corporate Co-creation Project Results Report (DENSO × Kentaro Okumura)
As part of YAU's corporate co-creation project, this exhibition presents a new video work, "On Difference Engines and Waves," by artist Kentaro Okumura, created in collaboration with DENSO Corporation.
Created for the DENSO Tokyo Branch office entrance, this work was developed through Okumura's research into the company's activities, layered with his own concerns. It demonstrates the new perspectives that emerge when different domains of corporations and artists intersect.
Dates: March 13 (Friday) to 15 (Sunday), 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM
Location: YAU STUDIO
Complete YAU OPEN STUDIO Program List
*Details will be updated periodically. Please check the YAU website for the latest information.
*Excluding programs highlighted above.
Exhibitions:
Y-LAB Library
Artist: TOKYO PHOTOGRAPHIC RESEARCH
Participating Artists: Takanori Kawahara, Keita Kojima, Kenta Kobayashi, Nanako Kobayashi, Taisuke Koyama, Yuta Saito, Kota Shiga, Hideyuki Shimauchi, Shota Tsukiyama, Tatsuhiko Togashi, Hayahisa Tomiyasu, Mayumi Hosokura, Rina Maeda, Yuki Matsui (Takuya Sekikawa), Marie Matsubara, Aimi Igarashi
Location: YAU STUDIO
Lectures & Workshops:
"Living. Working. Doing What You Want"
Artist: Takuya Takemoto
Date: March 14 (Saturday) 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM
Location: YAU STUDIO
Talk Events:
Zenigame Sewerage Research Presentation vol.1 "Holes" Opening Talk
Date: March 13 (Friday) 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM (scheduled)
Location: YAU CENTER Zenigame
Speakers: Tomoya Ishibashi (Artist) and others
YAU Open Talk - Envisioning the Future of YAU with YAU Friends and 2026 Open Call Announcement (tentative)
Date: March 14 (Saturday) 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM
Location: YAU STUDIO
Speakers: YAU Project Members, YAU FRIENDS (artist studio members, co-working members, etc.)
Art Urbanism Practitioners Network Public Meeting Round 1: Sapporo, Fukuoka, Tokyo
Date: March 15 (Sunday) 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM
Location: YAU STUDIO
Speakers:
Ryuzo Hasegawa (YAU)
Ikuko Imamura (Sapporo Station Front Street Development Company)
Keiko Kajihara (Fukuoka City Bureau of Economy, Tourism and Culture, Department of Culture and Festival Promotion)
Kenichi Kusaba (Hakata Town Development Promotion Council)
Shoma Kawasaki (We Love Tenjin Council), and others
Yurakucho Art Urbanism (YAU) Overview
Name: Yurakucho Art Urbanism YAU Phase 4
Period: April 2025 onwards
Location: YAU STUDIO (Tokyo Express Highway North Yurakucho Building 1F, Room 16)
Organizer:
"Yurakucho Art Urbanism" Executive Committee
(NPO Daimaruyu Area Management Association, Otemachi-Marunouchi-Yurakucho District Town Planning Council, Mitsubishi Estate Co., Ltd.)
Co-organizer:
Tokyo Metropolitan Government Bureau of Citizens, Culture and Sports (implementing some programs as joint projects with the Executive Committee)
Planning: YAU Project Team
Atsushi Fukai, Junpei Mori, Taisuke Koyama, Tomoya Takeda, Sayuri Fujii, Shintaro Shoji, Chihiro Kanamori, Aya Komori, Sakura Yamamoto, Satomi Muramatsu, Hitomi Sato, Shota Tsukiyama, Hana Takeda, Yuka Kurita, Rina Kurosu
TOKYO PHOTOGRAPHIC RESEARCH LLC, Bench General Incorporated Association, FRONTYARD Inc.
Subsidy: Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism
Official Website: https://arturbanism.jp
*YAU STUDIO is normally a private space not open to the public, but accepts studio visits through an inquiry form. General visitors are welcomed during YAU SALON, exhibitions, and other events, when activity results are made public and exchanges occur.
