geidaiRAM : Research-based Arts Management” is an educational program designed to develop human resources for research-based art projects,organized by The Graduate School of Film and New Mediaat Tokyo University of the Arts.

In Japan, the learning environment for arts management is improving in recent years. The number of art projects and festivals is also growing rapidly, but often they just enliven local communities and are not developed enough to respond to social problems. As a result, art projects keep creating a merrymaking atmosphere, but the feeling of despair in our society keeps getting bigger.

What we truly need to do now is to dig up problems in the society through research, then react to them in ways that are unique to art. It is also important to document and archive those activities in order to accommodate art to the society in a diverse manner.

Based on these ideas, the program focuses on the two following points:

1. To cultivate participants’ ability to show various functions of art to the society by making documents and archives of activities that they realize by implementing interdisciplinary research, study and management.
2. To cultivate participants’ ability in theory, practice and business by holding “Asia”-themed seminars and workshops with curriculums that cover judicial affairs and financial affairs.

The program develops talents who can cope with problems in the society through art, by offering 1.Lectures on practical business, 2.Seminars to deepen thoughts on different themes, 3.Field work in the city and art in practice; and 4.Production of documents and archives of our actions.

The process of the program will always be documented and edited by the participants. Depends on their effort and fields of interest, the document has potentials to turn into any forms of output such as publishing a book, making a film, or putting up on a website.

The participants are not only curators and producers but a variety of individuals who is eager to improve his/her skill and to work with “art, responsive to social problems”, by having research, editing, film making, design, or using digital media as ways of expression. geidaiRAM is a project to rethink and take a comprehensive view of the relationship between art and society in Japan.