1978 Born in Osaka, Japan / Live and work in Tijuana, Mexico – Düsseldorf, Germany
Shinpei Takeda is a visual artist and filmmaker. His works involve a wide range of themes regarding memories and history. He uses multi-media installations, sound interventions, documentary films, large-scale photography installations, and collaborative community projects in various public contexts.
Shinpei is also a Founder and a former creative director of The AJA Project, an art nonprofit in San Diego. As a filmmaker he works on documentaries and doc-fiction hybrid films (Atopus Studio). As a performance artist, he directs Ghost Magnet Roach Motel, a noise performance unit from Tijuana, Mexico.
Grants / Awards
2024 Film Production Grant / German Federal ministry of Culture and Media
2023 Production Grant / NRW Film and Media Foundation
2023 Creative Corps Fellowship / 18th street + California Arts Council
2022 Grant, Art Comission Düsseldorf
2021 Screenwriting grants / NRW film and Media Foundation
2020 Neustart Kultur artist grant / Kunstfonds
2018 Production Grants / NRW Film und Media Foundation
2017 Best Cinematography Award, Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival
2016 San Diego Art Award
2015 Post-production Grants / NRW Film und Media Foundation
2015 Inaugural AURA-AAAS Endowment Fund Award, Assoc. for Asian American Studies
2014 First award, Estandartes Biennale 2014, CECUT in Tijuana, Mexico
2012 Best Audience Award at Shinsedai Film Festival, Toronto, Canada
2011 Ibero Latinoamericana Visualities Fellowship, University of Illinois Urbana Champagne
2011 Commissioned Public Art, City of San Diego
2010 Nominated as the new artist of the year, San Diego Fine Arts society
2006 – 2013 Grant, National Memorial Museum, Nagasaki, Japan
2008 US Department of State international art exchange grant (with The AJA Project)
2006, 2007 Grant award (with The AjA Project), National Endowment for the Arts
2005, 2006 Grant, Trans-border Institute, University of San Diego
2001 Bennenson Awards, North Carolina
Solo Exhibition
2022 “Limit of your safe space” Oceanside Museum of Art
2021 “Fantasía Moral” Centro Cultural Tijuana, Tijuana, Mexico
2018 “ANTIMONUMENTO” Museo de la Cancilleria, Mexico City
2018 “ANTIMONUMENTO” Centro Cultural Nigromante, San Miguel de Allende, GTO, Mexico
2017 “CHRONOS KAIROS II” Sergott Contemporary, Rancho Santa Fe/CA, USA
2017 “CHRONOS KAIROS” 12-14 Contemporary, Vienna, Austria
2017 “FOBIA” Mesa College Art Gallery, San Diego, USA
2017 “ANTIMONUMENTO” Museo de Arte Queretaro, Queretaro, Mexico
2016 “Erinnerungshorizonte” Kraftwerk Mitte, Dresden, Germany
2015 “Inscription” Museum of New Americans, San Diego, USA
2015 “Antimonument” Nagasaki Art Museum, Nagasaki, Japan
2015 “Memoria(L)” Gallery G, Hiroshima, Japan
2014 “Beta Decay III: Timeline of our Memory” SPAM contemporary, Düsseldorf, Germany
2014 “Beta Decay II : How to unwind the time of violence” Maruki Museum, Saitama, Japan
2013 “Connecting Traces of Memory” KulturDepot, Dortmund, Germany
2012 “Alpha Decay 8: To narrate a new memory” University of Santander Gallery, Colombia
2012 “Alpha Decay 7: To Erase Memory” TJ in CHINA, Beijing, China
2012 “Alpha Decay 6: Memory’s transfer factor” Okinawa University, Japan
2012 “Alpha Decay 5: Margin of History, Scar of Memory” Kyoto Arts Center, Japan
2012 “Alpha Decay 4: Memory’s Topography”, Gallery 7 Kagoshima, Japan
2011 “Aplha Decay 2: Sakugo no Genten” Grizette Gallery, Tokyo Japan
2010 “Decaimiento Alfa” CECUT, Tijuana, Mexico
2005 “Dis-Placed,” Chaing Mai University, Thailand
2004 “Journey,” Foreign Correspondent Club, Bangkok, Thailand
Collective Exhibition
2024 Die Grosse 2024, Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf
2023 Mexicali Biennale, Cheech Museum of Latino Art and Culture, Riverside
2021 “Resonances of Distances” Based on Art gallery, Düsseldorf
2020 “Don`t ask me where I am from” Aga Khan Museum, Toronto Italy
2019 “Don’t ask me where I am from” Fondazione Benetton, Treviso, Italy
2019 “If the world has changed enough” 12-14 Contemporary, Vienna Austria
2019 “Japan Unlimited” Marcello Farabegoli Projects @Museumquartier Q21 Freiraum, Vienna, Austria
2018 “I see you,” 12-14 Contemporary, Vienna, Austria
2018 “The sun teaches us that history is not everything,” Osage Art Foundation, Hong Kong
2018 Die Grosse 2018, Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, Germany
2017 STUDIO, DENK gallery, Los Angeles, USA
2017 Transpacific Borderlands, Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles USA
2017 Extraordinary Collusion, San Diego Art Institute, San Diego, USA
2017 Displacement/Replacement, La Jolla Athenaeum, San Diego, USA
2016 Center for Creative Communication, Shizuoka, Japan
2016 SPAM Edition, SPAM Contemporary, Düsseldorf, Germany
2016 New Contemporaries, San Diego Art Award 2016, San Diego, USA
2016 Kagawa Triennale 2016
2015 Historia y Relatos, Collección Elias Fontes, CECUT, Tijuana Mexico
2015 “War and Peace” Hiroshima Art Museum, Hiroshima, Japan
2014 11th Edition Estandartes Biennale 2014, CECUT, Tijuana Mexico
2014 “Signos, Sentidos y Deseos: Arte Contemporaño de Baja California” UABC IIC Museo, Mexicali, Mexico
2013 “Arrópame de los pies” Exconvento San Pablo, Oaxaca City, Mexico
2011 “Dec(s)iertas Sentidos”, FILIJ, CENART, Mexico City
2010 “Confes(s)ions: 6 artists working in Tijuana” Jaus, Santa Monica, USA
2009 “Distancia Relativa” Entijuanarte, Tijuana, Mexico
2002 “Fairytale”, the United Nations, Bangkok, Thailand
Public Installation
2024 “Memoria Terra” at City Heights, San Diego
2020 “Memory Undertow” at Nagasaki Ground Zero Park, Japan
2019 Little Saigon Stories, w/The AJA Project, San Diego, USA
2016 Inter+Face, San Diego Museum of Man, The AjA Project, San Diego, USA
2014 “StoryLines Antenna” public installation, San Diego, USA
2012 “Sunflowers over the Bridge” public intervention, Düsseldorf, Germany
2012 “City Heights Mural” Mosaic mural, San Diego, USA
2012 “My Memory on Top of your Memory,” Commissioned Public works, San Diego, USA
2009 “UnderSTAND” Public Installation, Liberty Station (NTC) San Diego, USA
2008 “Barrio El Progreso” Public Installation, Soacha, COLOMBIA
2008 “Exposición de Bomba Átomica” Museo de Immigrante, Sao Paulo, BRASIL
2007 “in+Grain” Public Installation, San Diego, USA
2006 “Re+Collect”Public Installlation, San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, USA
2005 “Inter+Section”Public Installation, San Diego, USA
2004 “Lives in Transition” Exposición, United Nations New York, USA
2003 “Lives in Transition” National Geographic Explorers’ Hall, Washington DC
Video/Film
2024 “Pilgrimage” – Director/Producer/Writer
2021 “Apocatastasis” – Director/Editor/Producer/Writer
2018 “Kusama-Infinity“ Editor–Associate Producer
2016 “Ghost Magnet Roach Motel – Punk Musical Documentary” – Director/Editor/Producer
2009 “Hiroshima Nagasaki Download” – Director / Producer/Editor
2008 “El Mexico mas Cercano a Japon” – Director/Producer/Editor
2006 “The Last Atomic Bomb” – Producer/ Translator
2006 “Sue + Lonnie” in KPBS, Director/Producer
2005 “Journey of Saw Moo Doh Wah” – Director / Producer
Performance
2018 A New American Sound w/GMRM, Time + Space, San Diego, USA
2017 A New American Sound w/GMRM, Transpacific Borderland, Los Angeles, USA
2016 A New American Sound w/ GMRM, Mexicali, Mexico
2015 Cockroach Effect w/ GMRM, SXSW 2015, Austin, Texas
2015 Cockroach Effect w/ GMRM, NRMAL Festival, Mexico City
2014 Mexican Judgement Day w/ GMRM, All My Friends festival, Rosarito, Mexico
2014 El Monumento w/ GMRM, ICBC, Tijuana, Mexico
2012 Losing face in Beijing w/ GMRM, ZAJA lab, Beijing, China
2012 Great Fight in the Cinema w/ GMRM, CINETECA, Tijuana, Mexico
2010 Self-titled CD “Ghost Magnet Roach Motel”
2009 Sonic Intervention w/ GMRM, ICBC, Tijuana, Mexico
Publication
2023 “Antimonument Research” published by Antimonument Research Collective
2017 Antimonument: A short reflection on writings by Marcela Quiroz and Ryuta Imafuku, “Reimagining Hiroshima and Nagasaki – Nuclear Humanities in the post-cold war era” Routledge
2015 “Shinpei Takeda Antimonument” Nagasaki Art Museum
2014 “Alpha Decay: Can contemporary art express the memory of atomic bomb” Gendai Shokan
2014 “Hiroshima Nagasaki Beyond the Ocean” Yururi Shobo
2007 “Letter from Norway” The AJA Project
2006 “Record of Truth Vol. 1” The AJA Project
2005 “Time doesn’t heal the wounds” Voice of San Diego
2003 “Keeping the Record” Cultural Survival
2002 “Land of Evil” MentalFloss
Presentation / Lecture
2018 Digital Storyteller workshop/lectures, Kenyon College, Ohio
2017 “ANTIMONUMENT” 24th John Adams Humanities Lecture, San Diego State University
2016 “Antimonumnt: possibilities and impossibilites of downloading memories of massive violence” University of Oklahoma Presidential Dream Course
2012 “Alpha Decay-Downloading Memories of Americas” United Nations First Committee
2011 “Downloading memories of post-conflict diaspora: Art and Ethnography as public scholarship” University of Illinois Urbana Champagne
2011 “Hiroshima Nagasaki Download” University of California Los Angeles,
2011 “Hiroshima Nagasaki Download” Michigan State University
2010 “New model of cultural intervention and evocation” American Anthropology Association
2010 “Downloading Nagasaki” Concordia University, Montreal, Canada
2010 “Diaspora Japones” Colegio de Mexico, Mexico
2008 “El Mexico mas cercano a Japon,” UCLA
2008 “Mental Health in post-crisis community” Clinton Global Initiative University
2007 “Visual Rights: Photography by and for Children II” Univ. de Harvard
2006 “Visual Rights: Photography by and for Children” Cenac, Sao Paulo, Brasil
2006 “Institute of Traumatic Stress Studies Annual Conference”, Los Angeles
2006 “Building Common Agendas” University of California , Los Angeles
Course Taught
2006 “ETN197- Visual Ethnography,” Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego
Education
Master of Arts, Organizational Studies, University of San Diego
Bachelor of Science, Geology, Duke University
