• Update Date: 2025.05.20
• Category: Talk Event

Date & Time: 2025.6.14 (Sat.) 17:00 – 18:30

Speakers: Noe Aoki, Irina Grigore (anthropologist)

Venue: ANOMALY, Tokyo

Capacity: 30　*Reservation request
*The talk event is now fully booked. Thank you for your interest.

Language: Japanese only

Reservation: Please book your ticket through the link here.

Speakers Profiles：

Noe Aoki（Paticipating Artist）
Noe Aoki was born in Tokyo and now lives in Saitama Prefecture. She was awarded a master’s degree from Musashino Art University. Beginning in the 1980s, she began to produce works through repetition of the simple process of cutting industrial iron sheets into parts and reassembling the parts by welding them together. Her works are liberated from the hardness and massiveness proper to iron, as well as from the concept of sculpture, and change the space dramatically. She holds workshops on iron with children, actively participates in local art festivals in various parts of Japan, and considers interchange with places where her works are installed and the people there to be part of her life work. Her major exhibitions have been at the following venues: the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum (2024), Ichihara Lakeside Museum (solo exhibition, 2023), Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum (solo exhibition, 2019), Kirishima Open-Air Museum (solo exhibition, 2019), Fuchu Art Museum (solo exhibition, 2019), Toyota Municipal Museum (solo exhibition, 2012), Meguro Museum of Art Tokyo (solo exhibition, 2000), and many more. Her works are part of the collections of the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, National Museum of Art Osaka, National Museum of Modern Art Tokyo, Tottori Prefectural Museum of Art, Toyota Municipal Museum, Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Pola Museum of Art, and Agency for Cultural Affairs. She was selected for the Mainichi Arts Award, Nakahara Teijiro Prize, and Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Art Encouragement Prize.

Irina Grigore
Irina Grigore is an anthropologist specializing in Japanese folk performances and gender studies, with a focus on vernacular spiritual practices in northern Japan. Her research explores the intersections of ritual, folklore, and feminine agency in East Asian contexts. Recent projects include ethnographic studies on Aomori’s sacred traditions and women’s roles in Tohoku’s shamanic practices. Passionate about cross-cultural perspectives, Irina bridges Japanese and global spiritual narratives through her scholarship. Her fieldwork also extends to the Pacific, including research in Vanuatu.
Publications in Japanese: Gentle Hell (2022), The Invisible Things (2025)