Nafas Tokyo 2026

The Invisible Dog Art Center (New York) and BUoY Arts Center (Tokyo) are proud to present NAFAS TOKYO 2026, an ambitious month-long festival dedicated to the intersections of contemporary art, food, performance, and collective experience. Following the acclaimed inaugural edition in New York City in 2022, NAFAS arrives in Tokyo from September 4 through September 26, 2026, transforming BUoY Arts Center into a place where exhibitions, performances, conversations, meals, workshops, and communal gatherings unfold around one universal subject: food. In Arabic, nafas means breath. It also refers to the rare ability to transform food into something beyond nourishment—an act of generosity, creativity, and care. Inspired by this idea, NAFAS proposes food not simply as a necessity but as a language through which artists examine memory, identity, migration, ritual, ecology, labor, politics, hospitality, and the body. Rather than treating food as a theme, NAFAS considers it a medium—a way of understanding how we live together. Curated by Lucien Zayan, founder and director of The Invisible Dog Art Center, in collaboration with Kako Kishimoto, Artistic Director of BUoY Arts Center, the festival brings together 70 artists, performers, writers, chefs, from Japan, U.S.A, France, Lebanon, Brazil, Sweden, Canada, Belgium, Peru, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Iran. Selected through an international open call the participating artists present newly commissioned projects alongside existing works across visual art, installation, performance, moving image, sound, and socially engaged practice. Throughout the month, the exhibition expands beyond the gallery through an extensive public program that includes performances, artist talks, screenings, culinary workshops, communal meals, concerts, family activities, and conversations designed to encourage encounters between artists and audiences. The festival also marks a significant international collaboration between two independent nonprofit organizations committed to experimentation, accessibility, and cultural exchange. Since its founding in Brooklyn in 2009, The Invisible Dog Art Center has championed interdisciplinary artistic practices and community engagement. BUoY Arts Center has established itself as one of Tokyo's most dynamic spaces for emerging artistic practices and experimental performance. Together, the two institutions envision NAFAS not simply as an exhibition, but as a temporary ecosystem where artists, audiences, neighbors, and visitors meet through shared experiences.