Launched in 2009, Roppongi Art Night is a one-night, all-night, art extravaganza that celebrates the enjoyment of art in everyday living, and serves as a trailblazing model for local initiatives in the Japanese capital. Staged in the district of Roppongi with its high concentration of retail stores and cultural institutions, Roppongi Art Night – going from strength to strength each year as Tokyo’s premier art festival – offers an extraordinary one-night-only full-on blast of contemporary art, design, music, video and performance art via a huge range of works dotted around the streets.

Artistic Director for Roppongi Art Night 2015 will be artist Katsuhiko Hibino, who also held the post in 2013 and 2014. For 2015 Hibino has assembled a more varied and wide-ranging program than ever celebrating the strengths of Tokyo, the attractions of Roppongi, and the diversity of art. In a new development for RAN, Hibino will be joined by Seiichi Saito, director of Rhizomatiks Co., Ltd., in the role of Media Art Director. Together they will explore new possibilities in technology and media art, essential considerations for Tokyo today and cities of the future, with the aim of devising a new format for Roppongi Art Night.

Another first in 2015 will be what has been provisionally dubbed the “Open Call Project(Tentative),” in which members of the public will be invited to submit their own projects for Roppongi Art Night. In addition, the process of making works and other initiatives directed toward the event on the night will be facilitated and augmented through a series of initiatives referred to as “pre-programs.” The first of these will be the Tentatively named “Open Call Project Public Presentation” in which promising submissions to the “Open Call Project(Tentative)” will be selected and planners summoned to present their works in person in front of a judging panel, in sessions open to a general audience. A number of other “pre-programs” will also be scheduled in the lead-up to the festival itself on 25-26 April.

Plenty of surprises are sure to be in store when the formidable tag team of Hibino and Saito join forces to present Roppongi Art Night.