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

2015Memoria(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