Tetsuya Umeda and Haji Oh: Wetland

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government and Tokyo Arts and Space (TOKAS) has been presenting the Tokyo Contemporary Art Award (TCAA) to mid-career artists in Japan since 2018. Two winners are selected for each award, and in the second year of a multi-year program of support provided to the artists, an award exhibition Wetland is held at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo.

The most recent works of Tetsuya Umeda and Haji Oh, the two winners of the fifth TCAA, are incorporating their respective examinations of water-related topics such as sea routes and waterways, as central elements.

Oh’s exhibition mainly revolves around the Grand-Mother Island Project, which appeals to visitors’ memories by taking them on a journey around imaginary “islands” connecting the stories and histories of human individuals, while Umeda, who has been visualizing the structures of things through performances that sometimes involve “excursion” like activities, creates new guidelines in the exhibition space that, like divisions between front and back, or marshland between the sea and the mainland, may gently overlap, or be reversed entirely.

About the artists
Tetsuya Umeda: Born in Kumamoto in 1980. Umeda produces installations that are inspired by and incorporate existing elements found in the environment and circumstances surrounding the exhibition space including its architectural structure. In addition to exhibitions in museums and art institutions, he has produced numerous site-specific works based on the context of both urban spaces and the natural environment. Performance works are presented in Japan and abroad, such as tours inviting the audience to unfamiliar places, stage works focusing on functions found in theaters, and chorus projects without a center point. He is also internationally renowned as a leading artist in the field of sound art.

Recent solo exhibitions: wait this is my favorite part, WATARI-UM, The Watari Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, 2023, Tetsuya Umeda in BEPPU ‘0 Tai’, Beppu and other locations, 2020. Recent performance: Kunstenfestivaldesarts 2017, Composite: Variations / Circle, Brussels, etc.

Haji Oh: Born in Osaka in 1976. Oh creates installation works utilizing textile-making techniques such as weaving, dyeing and unravelling, as well as photographs/cyanotype, texts and sounds. Drawing on her background as a third-generation Zainichi Korean, she creates artworks to give expression to the untold memories—silent memories—of women and unnamed individuals. She explores the concept of post-memory by sharing experiences and dialogue through a collaborative process of community workshops. Currently, she is based in Japan and Australia for her art practices.

Recent exhibitions: TOP 30th Anniversary Thoughts of a Distant Window: Contemporary Japanese Photography vol.22, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, 2025, The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery—Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia, 2025, ANTEPRIMA x CHAT Contemporary Textile Art Prize 2024, CHAT, Hong Kong, Roppongi Crossing 2022, Coming & Going, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2022, etc. 

About the monograph
A monograph will be published for each award winner (Japanese / English, not for sale), featuring images of the respective artist’s works, written contributions by the artists and experts, and pictures of the exhibition. After publication, they will be available on the TCAA website and will be distributed by post (in Japan only) to those who request them in August 2026 (tentative). Details will be announced on the TCAA website. 

For more information, please visit here.

Organizers: Tokyo Metropolitan Government and Tokyo Arts and Space / Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture).