Foster Mickley gives to warmth and wonder reverent and tender forms. A Lithuanian-American poet living in Kyoto, Japan, his practice holds that shared imagination revitalizes, that art expands and delights the possible.
Inscribed with-in legacies and voices including those of Emily Dickinson, Felix Gonzales-Torres and Etel Adnan, his creative process “cares for admiration, kinship and joy.” Founder of the artist space black cat day dream, his last four exhibitions have focused on the materials of seashells, blooming flowers, sea stones rounded in waves, and open books.
Foster Mickley is a master of journalism at Medill School in Chicago, fine arts at Columbia University and photography with Magnum Photo in Paris. He has engaged in artists-activists collective Antibodies Collective, Organizing Resources Together (ORT) in New York, historic artist collective Diamonds are Forever founded by Dumb Type co-founder Teiji Furuhashi, and Neon Book Club in Tokyo.
In 2022, he was selected within the Research Fellow Program of the Kyoto Institute of Contemporary Arts, and became the first artist in residence at the Field Science Education and Research Center, Division of Forest Ecology of Kyoto University in 2023.
Past exhibitions include a solo show at Munch Gallery in New York (2015), group shows in Arles Voies Off Korea National University of the Arts (2016), Harlem NYC Ilon Gallery (2016), Berlin Foto Kiez (2017), Tokyo Reminders Project Stronghold (2019), Kyotographie International photography Festival (2020), Horenji Temple (2021) and Kyoto University of the Arts (2022), Festival La Chambre Verte with Centre Pompidou (2021) and National Site of Scenic Beauty Murin-an in Kyoto (2022). His photographs and writing were published in the Asahi Shimbun, Real Kyoto / ICA Kyoto and Pioneer Works, New York City.
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Isabelle Olivier is an independent curator and producer. She has lived in Lebanon, Spain and Japan, engaged in international development, cultural diplomacy and the arts.
Her practice revolves around inclusive and supporting space, in search for forms of “anticipatory illuminations” and shared futures.
She brings together artists and writers, scholars and researchers, public servants and activists, galleries and temples, to contribute to producing transforming realities, and relating communities, constellations.
Between the development of Hors Pistes Tokyo with Centre Pompidou in 2011 and the organization of Q(WE)R International Cultures Festival in 2022, she has been a regional attachee for French Embassy at Kansai French Institute in Kyoto (2012-2016), responsible for French artist in residency program Villa Kujoyama, an international producer for artist Kohei Nawa and choreographer Damien Jalet (2018-2022), a programmer for Nuit Blanche Kyoto (2012-2016, 2019).
Other engagements include the founding support and management of Kyotographie International Photography Festival (2016-2018), multiple collaborations with Kyoto Experiment Performing Arts Festival, and exhibitions of National Living Treasures from France and Japan in Kyoto, Tokyo and Beijing.
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Foster Mickley and Isabelle Olivier are collaborating since 2020.
Their collaborations include in waves (2021), through the clouds (2022), in bloom (2022), cruising utopia (2022), and Q(WE)R International Culture Festival (2022).
In the summer of 2022, Foster Mickley creates black cat day dream, an artist run ecological space in Kyoto.
In the winter, they found black cat day dream press.
During their residency in Paris, they will make a space to welcome. Within the legacy of Cite Internationale des Arts, they will create dream of a common language, a gift project of shared quiet wonder.