Arts Council Tokyo (Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture) is pleased to announce the finalized line-up of programs for FY2025.

2025 Key Initiatives
■The World Athletics Championships and Deaflympics: opportunities to promote greater accessibility in arts and culture
The TOKYO FORWARD 2025 Cultural Program is an art project to be run in tandem with the World Athletics Championships and the Deaflympics in Tokyo, under the slogan “come together, connect, and create with diverse participants.” The program’s highlights will be the performance event “Japanese Festival “omatsuri” (Tokyo Wasshoi)” featuring matsuri festival groups and traditional performing arts organizations from across the metropolitan area; and the stage production “Breathe Move Don’t Be Silent” in which deaf people and hearing people encounter each other.
We established the Grant for Accessibility to support initiatives by organizations that implement arts and culture projects aimed at improving accessibility in the sector. With this grant in mind, we will also establish a new framework for the development of accessibility initiatives in the fall when both tournaments are being held, as well as promote the creation of an environment where everyone can enjoy arts and culture, by rolling out a campaign to build momentum for improving accessibility in arts and culture.

■Expansion of interactive experience-based initiatives for kids and young people, the future leaders in arts and culture
In 2024 we launched the Next Creation Program, which enables children to learn aspects of arts and culture they are interested in more thoroughly and at a higher level. For FY2025, in addition to the “Kids & Youth Open Campus” and the “Kids’ Fashion Project” initiatives, we will engage with new projects such as the “Visual Arts Creation Program” (provisional title), and the “Kids’ Film Project” (provisional title).

■Enhancement of support for project/activities and human resource development
The START Box program supports the creative work of young artists in addition to START Box SasaHataHatsu and START Box Odaiba, we plan to provide new creative spaces such as new ateliers and rehearsal spaces. Creation Grant newly established “Category IV [Long Term] International film screenings.”

Full press release (PDF) is available here.
Arts Council Tokyo FY2025 Program Line-Up Announced