Background

Koichiro Osaka is a curator, writer, and art history researcher, currently a PhD candidate in Comparative Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore.

Osaka studied and worked in Bangkok and London before moving to Tokyo, where he founded the independent exhibition space ASAKUSA in 2015. Over the past decade, he has curated site-oriented and politically reflexive projects, often with the support of municipal and public organisations. In 2023, he established the 0-eA Society for the Curatorial, a non-profit research initiative dedicated to fostering curatorial experimentation. His exhibitions include Imperial Ghosts in the Neoliberal Machine (Figuring the ICA) (e-flux, New York, 2019) and Curse Mantra: Jusatsu Kito Sodan (Para Site Residency, Hong Kong, 2019). Most recently, he organised the curatorial symposium YANARI in collaboration with the Seoul Museum of Art (Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, 2025).

Osaka holds a BA in Art Criticism and an MA in Socially-Engaged Performance from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.

Asian Languages

Fluent in English and conversational in Thai, Osaka is currently studying Mandarin to enrich the textures of his research and to reframe his knowledge of Japanese as a first language, while preparing to learn Bahasa Melayu to broaden the scope of his inter-regional inquiry.

Research Interests

Osaka’s research examines comparative modernities through exhibition histories from the post-1945 era into the cultural Cold War. His work also addresses the affective dimensions of curatorial practice, particularly the operations of absence, silence, and omission in shaping and contouring art-historical narratives.