The Invisible Dog (New York City) and BUoY Arts Center (Tokyo) are thrilled to present NAFAS, a month long festival celebrating Art and Food.
In Arabic, nafas means breath—but also the gift some possess to elevate food beyond sustenance into something extraordinary.
In this spirit, the Tokyo edition of NAFAS Festival will bring together artists, performers, scholars, writers, poets, and chefs to consider food through multiple forms of art.
NAFAS is both exhibition and gathering. Artists from Japan and elsewhere will present new and existing works, while the festival extends beyond the gallery through community-oriented events, performances, cooking classes, film screenings, musical concerts, and conversations.
Essay about NAFAS Tokyo, by Emil Pacha Valencia
Like so many things, a flavor or a cuisine cannot be judged after a single tasting (…) The first time, we are always unsettled by a new flavor, by a cooking technique, by a combination of tastes we have never encountered before; we simply lack the words to describe it.
In her book Fade, author Ryoko Sekiguchi examines a notion that has long been associated with cuisines unfamiliar to us. She shows that when we describe a food as "bland," we reveal less about the cuisine we are judging than about the limits of our own perception. From this observation, and without lapsing into the kind of fatalism that suggests "we can never truly understand," or that such understanding is "reserved for connoisseurs," Sekiguchi offers a hopeful perspective: to truly grasp a cuisine, we must first unlearn our own culinary "grammar" and approach it with the humility, but also the optimism, of someone learning an unfamiliar language.
NAFAS is part of this movement. Founded in 2022 by Lucien Zayan, director of The Invisible Dog, a New York-based nonprofit arts organization, the second Tokyo edition of the festival will take place from September 4 to 26, 2026, in partnership with BUoY Arts Center, an art center dedicated to emerging artists envisioned by Kako Kishimoto. Around sixty Japanese and international artists, working across a wide range of disciplines, will explore food in an attempt to answer a series of questions that are at once simple and fundamental. What does it mean to eat? What significance does a meal hold when you were born in Osaka or Paris, or when you come from Akron, Ohio? When you live alone in a converted factory in Brooklyn, or share a 40-square-meter apartment with four others in a danchi, a public housing complex on the outskirts of Tokyo? When we cook for someone, are we merely feeding them? And what becomes of food once it has been consumed? Does it cease to be food the moment it passes our lips?
「多くの物事と同様に、味や料理も、一度味わっただけで判断できるものではない（……）。新しい味や調理法、それまで知らなかった味の組み合わせ等に初めて出会うと、人はいつも戸惑ってしまう。それを表現する言葉が見つからないのだ。」著書『Fade(味気ない)』の中で、作家の関口涼子は、長い間、馴染みのない料理と結びつけられてきたこの概念に注目し、ある食べ物を「味気ない」と評することが、評価対象の料理そのものについてではなく、むしろ私たち自身の限界について物語っていることを明らかにします。この事実を踏まえ、「理解できない」とか「通だけのもの」といった一種の宿命論に陥ることなく、著者は希望に満ちた展望を提示します。ある料理の本質を捉えるためには、私たち自身の食の「文法」から脱却し、未知の言語を学ぶ者の持つ謙虚さ そして希望 を持って歩みを進める必要があるのです。
NAFASもこの動きの一環です。ニューヨークを拠点とする非営利団体「The Invisible Dog」の代表、ルシアン・ザヤンによって2022年に創設されたこのアートフェスティバル、その東京での第２回開催は、岸本佳子が構想した新進アーティストに特化したアートセンター「BUoY Arts Center」との提携により、2026年9月4日から26日まで行なわれます。日本および海外から約60名のアーティストが、あらゆる表現媒体を駆使して「食」をテーマに制作に取り組み、単純でありながら根本的な一連の問いへの答えを探ります。「食べる」とはどういうことか？ 大阪やパリで生まれた人、あるいはオハイオ州アクロン出身の人にとって、食事にはどのような意味があるのでしょうか？ ブルックリンの旧工場を再利用した建物で一人暮らしをしている場合では、あるいは東京郊外の団地という公営住宅で40平方メートルの部屋を5人でシェアしている場合ではどうでしょうか？ 誰かのために料理を作る時、私たちは単にその人に食べ物を与えているだけなのでしょうか？ そして、その食べ物は体内に取り込まれた後、どうなるのでしょうか？ 食べ物は、口の中を通り過ぎた時点で、もはや食べ物ではなくなるのでしょうか？
Read the full version in English and Japanese here
このエッセイの全文（英語版・日本語版）はこちらでお読みいただけます
About BUoY Arts Center
These ruins are full of history. The first floor was once a bowling alley; the basement, a public bath. Now, it has been renovated by its members — a diverse group: architects, artists, mangaka, (former) bank clerks, dramaturgs, baristas, dancers, critics, poets, accountants, painters, choreographers, lawyers, curators, directors, editors, researchers, translators, and set designers.
Their basement space was opened in July 2017, and the first-floor arts centre followed in October. Above, BUoY has a café, a gallery for art exhibitions, and a rehearsal space. The basement below, stretching out for 300㎡, is used for theatre and dance productions. There, they present cutting-edge productions that combine the diverse genres of arts: theatre, performance, dance, poetry, architecture, food, film…Their mission is to create encounters with 'otherness'.
A BUoY (/ˈbuːiː/) is a signpost that floats in the sea. As a reference point that does not sink even if submerged, it can also serve as a landmark for ships that have lost their way on the open water. This name declares their desire to guide and support young artists. It also represents their intention to disseminate art that is new, yet still immersed in the history of their home in Senjū: a land-ship floating between the Arakawa and Sumidagawa rivers. The idea that BUoY should be a place to encounter other values resonates with the tolerance of diversity that has flourished in this post town since the time of the samurai.
BUoY is a place that is skeptical of the obvious in Japanese society – its pursuit of compromise and preëstablished harmony – and instead hints at the view from a slightly more distant vantage point. It is a place where one can come to encounter something other than oneself. It is a place where one can come face-to-face with critical, cutting-edge art, full of intent.
From these ruins, they aim to help create a society that is more open to diversity.
The NAFAS edition in Tokyo has been made possible thanks to our generous donators
Gisela Blanc, Rima Abdul Malak, Katherine Fleming, J. Paul Getty Trust, Erin Hurley and Ashley Newton, Stéphane Magnan, Paz Corona, Danielle and Aamir, Vallejo Gantner.
Jill Benson, Monica Blanc, Nemo Hoffman, Mio Nakamura, Sara Lubtchansky Lindsay Grindstaff, Lili Chopra, Jude Griebel, Edouard Laug, Martine Uzan, Aaron Landsman, Tristan de Terves, Kyle Boyd, Laurence Herszberg.
Artist
Some donors wish to remain anonymous.
Be a supporter of the Tokyo Edition of NAFAS.
The first edition of NAFAS Festival was created in September 2022 in New York City. 40 visuals artists were part of the exhibition and 17 events - cinema, theater, danse, music, talk… were offered to the public.
You can discover the full program here
Location
BUoY Arts Center
49-11, Senju-Nakacho, Adachi-ku,
Tokyo
Admission:
Free
Dates
September 4 - 26, 2026
Opening Reception
Friday September 4
6.30-9.30pm
Free Admission
Gallery Hours
Thursday & Friday: 2 to 7pm,
Saturday & Sunday: 1 to 6pm.