Roundtable | Kenzi Shiokava

About the Event

Delve into the practice of artist Kenzi Shiokava in this roundtable conversation between curators and art historians Aram Moshayedi, Michiko Okano, and Hamza Walker. Moderated by Nolan Jimbo, curator of the exhibition.

Access Information

English CART captioning is provided at this event. To request additional accessibility services, please contact us at [email protected] or 312-397-4076.

About the Speakers

Image courtesy of Aram Moshayedi

Aram Moshayedi is a writer and curator currently based in Los Angeles. Most recently, he was Curator-in-Residence at Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City, where he organized the exhibitions Nina Beier Casts and OTR^S MUND^S) (both 2024). In 2013, he joined the Hammer Museum as Curator and subsequently occupied the roles of Senior Curator (2021–23) and Interim Chief Curator (2023–25). Moshayedi’s exhibitions and publications at the Hammer include David Medalla: In Conversation with the Cosmos; Lifes; Paul McCarthy: Head Space, Drawings 1963–2019 (with Connie Butler); Stories of Almost Everyone; Made in L.A. 2016: a, the, though, only (with Hamza Walker); and All the Instruments Agree: An Exhibition or a Concert; in addition to projects by Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Marwa Arsanios, Andrea Bowers, Andrea Büttner, Tita Cicognani, Simon Denny, Janiva Ellis, Mario García Torres, Shadi Habib Allah, Maria Hassabi, Jasmina Metwaly, Ho Tzu Nyen, Oliver Payne and Keiichi Tanaami, Renata Petersen, Jordan Strafer, and Avery Singer. His writing has appeared in numerous exhibition catalogues as well as Artforum, Art in America, BOMB Magazine, Frieze, Metropolis M, Parkett, X-TRA Contemporary Art Quarterly, and Bidoun, for which he is a contributing editor.

Image courtesy of Michiko Okano

Michiko Okano, PhD in Communication and Semiotics, Post Doctorate at the School of Communication and Arts at University of São Paulo (USP), Professor of the Undergraduate and Graduate Programs of History of Asian Art at the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP), Collaborator Professor in the Graduate Program at the Japanese Studies Center of USP, Coordinator of the GEEA (Asian Art Study Group). Author of Ma: in between spaces of art in Japan (Annablume, 2011), Manabu Mabe (Folha de S.Paulo, 2013), Helena Pereira da Silva Ohashi and Riokai Ohashi: art and life connections (Arte 132, 2022) as well as many articles and book chapters. Research focuses on the artistic dialogue created by the circulation, connection and translation of objects of art, artists and culture between Japan and the West, especially in relation to Japanese-Brazilian artists. Curator of following Art Exhibitions: InCommon Gaze: Revisited Japan at Oscar Niemeyer Museum in Curitiba (2016), Transpacific Borderlands: The art of Japanese Diaspora in Lima, Los Angeles, Mexico City and São Paulo, held at Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles) (2017–18), and Helena and Riokai: between Brazil and Japan, Paris at Art 132 Gallery (São Paulo) (2021–22).

Photo: Todd Gray

Since 2016, Hamza Walker has served as director of The Brick, formerly known as LAXART, a non-profit alternative art space in Los Angeles. Prior to The Brick, Walker served as Associate Curator/Director of Education at The Renaissance Society, a non-collecting museum of contemporary art on the University of Chicago campus. Recent exhibitions include MONUMENTS (2025–26); Betsy Paige Smith: Unshade Me Of You (2025); Gregg Bordowitz: This is Not A Love Song (2025); Nikita Gale, Takers (2022); Ari Marcopoulos/Joe McPhee: Alone Together (2021); Kandis Williams/Cassandra Press’s The Absolute Right to Exclude (2021); and Postcommodity’s Some Reach While Others Clap (2020).