Akasegawa Genpei was a pseudonym of Japanese artist Akasegawa Katsuhiko (赤瀬川克彦), born March 27, 1937 in Yokohama. He used another pseudonym, Otsuji Katsuhiko (尾辻克彦), for literary works. A member of the influential artist groups Neo-Dada Organizers and Hi-Red Center, Akasegawa went on to maintain a multi-disciplinary practice throughout his career as an individual artist. In 1986, Akasegawa and his collaborators, Terunobu Fujimori and Shinbo Minami, to announce the formation of a new group: Street Observation Society; In 1994, the Leica Alliance with contemporary artist Akiyama Yūtokutaishi and photographer Takanashi Yutaka; and in 1996, the Japan Art Support Group with art researcher Yamashita Yuji. He has had retrospective exhibitions at the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Chiba City Museum, and Oita City Museum. His work is in the permanent collection at Museum of Modern Art in New York. Artist Nam June Paik has described Akasegawa as “one of those unexportable geniuses of Japan.” He pass away on October 26, 2014, at the age of 77.

Fujimori Terunobu is a Japanese architect and architectural historian. He studied at Tōhoku University before entering graduate school at the University of Tokyo. Whilst writing his thesis in the 1970s Fujimori formed the Architecture Detectives. In this group he and his colleagues searched the city to find and photograph early Western-style buildings. During the 1970s and 1980s he made studies of the city about early Western buildings and unusual occurrences, and did not turn to architecture until he was in his forties. He is currently a professor at the University of Tokyo’s Institute of Industrial Science.

Born in Tokyo in 1947, he is an illustrator, editor, cartoonist, and essayist. He completed the “Art Practice” course taught by Genpei Akasegawa at the “School of the Arts” (Mihakyo). For seven years, he served as an editor for the magazine Garo (ガロ), while concurrently working on illustrations and essays. His published works include An Art Museum for the Uninitiated, Poster Paleoanthropology, Funny Science, Funny Photos, My Own People, and the co-authored An Introduction to Street Observation.

A Japanese translator and publishing editor who hovers between language and print. She considers language to be design, translating Japanese into Korean and plans books. She has worked in architecture and interiors, and after studying in Japan, she worked as an editor at Ahn Graphics. She has translated Rojinryoku, Who Made 501XX?, The Mina Perhonen Design Journey: The Circulation of Memory, An Encyclopedia of Tokyo Hotels, The Original Scenery of Harajuku in the 1970s, Walking with the Designer’s Mind, Talking to the Body, Dancing with Language, Manual on Street Observation, Hyperart Thomason, Low-Altitude Flight, If You’re Doing What You Love into Korean, and wrote A Strangely Longing Feeling (co-authored).