Naoto Hieda (1990, Japan) is an artist based in Cologne with a background in engineering (B.Eng., Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, 2012 and M.Eng., McGill University, Canada, 2015). Since 2019, they are enrolled in Diplom II at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne with a thesis titled “Neuroqueerness and Decolonization in Media Art”.

Hieda has participated in creation and production of dance performances including “Dance Clinic Mobile” by Choy Ka Fai (tanzhaus nrw, 2019), a residency at Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts with Raphael Hillebrand (2019) and “The Body and the Other~” by Eleonora Siarava (tanzhaus nrw, 2020).

Hieda’s works focus on bodies and digitality in a non-normative, non-conforming manner. “Multidimensional Journey” (2020) with Nien Tzu Weng playfully explores the presence of virtual bodies, developed during a distanced, online residency at the Centre de Création O Vertigo (Canada, 2020) and presented online at NODE20 (Frankfurt, 2020). “Best Practices in Contemporary Dance” (2020-) is a project by Jorge Guevara and Hieda, fostering a queer form of conversation between technology and bodies, presented at IDOCDE (ImpulsTanz, Austria, 2021), NEW NOW (Essen, 2021), Temps d’Images (tanzhaus nrw, Düsseldorf, 2022) and Hauptsache Frei (Hamburg, 2022). Hieda’s artworks have been recently exhibited at Pola Museum Annex (Japan, 2022) and Art Fair Tokyo (Japan, 2022).

In 2022, Hieda was a 5-month research fellow at the Academy for Theater and Digitality together with Florencia Alonso. The work was presented at venues such as Time Window (The Netherlands) and Dortmunder U. Subsequently, Hieda participated in an exchange semester at master’s program in Theater and Live Arts at the National University of Colombia, culminated as self-organized “Naoto's Festival” at the Teatro de Garaje (2023), where Hieda contributed as a producer, curator, artist, performer and manicurist.

Hieda is an awardee of danceWeb scholarship (mentored by Tino Sehgal, Austria, 2016), Pola Art Foundation Fellowship (Japan/Canada, 2017), Yoshino Gypsum Art Foundation Fellowship (Japan/Germany, 2020), Digital Originals Grant from the Canada Council for the Arts (2020), DAAD Prize (Cologne, 2021) and TakeHeart Residencies hosted by PACT Zollverein (Germany, 2022 and 2023).

Image: Andrea Gamboa