Introducing TAB Talks

For the past 3 and a half years, Tokyo Art Beat has kept its fingers on the pulse of art and design in Tokyo, striving to reveal the whole gamut of our city’s events, via a clean, bilingual website, to be enjoyed by people of all backgrounds.

At the end of this month, TAB takes its first big step offline with a new series of bilingual talk events called TAB Talks.

Hosted twice a month on Tuesdays at the new event space Gotanda Sonic, Tab Talks will bring greater visibility, a voice, and a meeting point to foreign and local designers, artists, curators, agencies, architects, business managers, gallerists, collectors, event organizers, both established and up-and-coming, to foster new conversations, ideas and relationships in Tokyo’s creative sphere.

TAB Talks will be hosted by TAB’s newest team member, Mari Mukai, a Journalism graduate from City University of New York Brooklyn College. Mari split the last 10 years between New York and Tokyo, working as a freelance writer for several Japanese publications. We’re happy to have her on the team, and hope you’ll give her your support!

TAB Talks will consist of three main types. The first type will be presentations with open discussions among guests and the audience, a chance to expand one’s own creativity and understand the unique vantage point of each guest. The second type will be workshops, aiming to provide new designers and artists with an opportunity to learn things not taught at school; like how to become a curator, start one’s own design business or promote one’s creative work abroad. The third type will be no-holds barred discussion forums among designers or artists about recent news, products or events happening in Tokyo.

Each talk will be followed by a short segment called The 30-second Pitch. Five members of the audience will be invited to introduce themselves to the audience, promote a recent project, or announce a new product, website or company.

Each TAB Talk will wrap up with an hour of drinks, chatting, and networking among guests and audience, complete with on-demand translators at your disposal.

To keep TAB Talks self-sustainable, we’ll be asking for around 1000 yen at the door, 100% of which will be used to bring you the best speakers and best TAB possible. We think 1000 yen is a great deal that will only get better, brought to you by the same non-profit organization of mostly volunteer art and design geeks that keep TAB running.

TAB Talks will start at 9pm, late enough to allow overworked designers like us to catch a bite to eat and still make it on time for the beginning of each talk.

The first event, scheduled for February 26, will feature Yoshio Suzuki, long-time editor of BRUTUS. Mr. Suzuki will let us in on everything that goes into making one of Japan’s bestselling cultural magazines.
Read the full event details

2008 will be a big year for us, full of new adventures. Online, we are preparing for the launch of New York Art Beat in March. Offline, in addition to TAB Talks, we’re designing a new bimonthly printed art events map (available in April).

None of this could happen without your support, so a big thanks! We hope to see you at the first TAB Talk.