Haruka Shibata

Haruka Shibata studied traditional art history, focusing on theater theory in Japanese University, also conducting research about minority groups including sexual minorities, homeless, and students with disabilities. In addition, Haruka experienced a 1-year internship in an art non-profit organization supporting the art program, "Theater Commons Tokyo" which uses the imagination of theater to create experiences in which diverging elements and time periods intersect, and the ordinary is defamiliarized through dialogue and discovery.

What drew you to the MA Arts Politics program?

Through the practices for curator in my university, I started to know various modern arts including socially engaged arts. Because of knowing them, I realized these arts can solve several social problems indirectly, and decided to research this field at graduate school. Originally, I was interested in not only arts but also the social issue of sexual minorities or poverty, so I often took some lessons related to these themes and do field work. However, it was quite difficult to find the way for connecting the society and arts, so I had been looking for that way. Finally, I found socially engaged arts, and I considered that Arts Politics in NYU must be the best program for me.