From a Leading Japanese Architect to a World-Renowned Museum and Global Design Media — Announcing the Committee Members for alter. 2026, Tokyo
april 29, 2026
alter. is a project that challenges the preconceptions of product design and seeks to renew the value of creativity. With the open call for the second edition — to be held this October — currently underway, we are pleased to announce the committee members who will oversee this year’s selection.
Following the inaugural edition, whose committee featured internationally renowned figures including curators from MoMA and the Centre Pompidou as well as creators such as Formafantasma and Keisuke Nakamura, this year’s committee once again brings together five members drawn from across design media, events, architecture, and museums. Standing at the forefront of their respective fields, these five perspectives will pose new questions to the creators gathering at alter.
Dan Thawley（Artistic Director/Editor）
Our first committee member is editor and Artistic Director Dan Thawley, the creative force behind MATTER and SHAPE — the design salon held at the Jardin des Tuileries during Paris Fashion Week. As Editor-in-Chief of A Magazine Curated By from 2010 to 2023, he shaped a singular publication that invited guest editors including Simone Rocha and Grace Wales Bonner. A frequent contributor to Vogue, Architectural Digest, and The Business of Fashion, he has also been awarded an honorary doctorate by Aalto University.
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Launched in 2024, MATTER and SHAPE brings together dozens of exhibitors each year within a temporary venue spanning several thousand square metres, creating a cross-disciplinary forum that bridges design and fashion. Its first edition welcomed over 8,000 visitors, and its third edition, held in March 2026, featured around 70 exhibitors. “Design is now where fashion was ten years ago,” he once remarked in an interview with Monocle — a perspective that promises to broaden the horizons of alter.’s own practice.
alter. aims to cultivate, edition by edition, a network that connects its committee members and exhibitors. With that in mind, in shaping the committee for the second edition, we invited recommendations from the members of the first. Johan Deurell, curator at the Vitra Design Museum, is one of the members recommended to us — in his case by Tanja Hwang of MoMA, who served on the inaugural committee. Originally from Sweden, Johan completed his MA in History of Design at the Royal College of Art / Victoria and Albert Museum before working as a curator at the Röhsska Museum of Design and Craft in Gothenburg.
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Johan is known for projects that connect design to broader social and political contexts — from Unmaking Democratic Design, an exhibition dismantling the myth of democratic design in Sweden, to an exhibition with the research agency Forensic Architecture. He subsequently served as Exhibitions Officer at the Zaha Hadid Foundation, overseeing their exhibition programme, before joining the Vitra Design Museum as curator. By treating product design not merely as aesthetic creation but as a lens for social discourse, Johan’s approach will situate alter.’s prototyping as a hybrid practice engaging fields as varied as politics and ecology.
Laura May Todd（Design Journalist）
Media plays a vital role in connecting the next generation of Japanese creators to global contexts. With this in mind, and on the recommendation of Kristen de La Vallière of “say hi to_” — a committee member from the first edition — we are pleased to welcome Laura May Todd, an editor working primarily with the international design title Wallpaper*, as a committee member this year.
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A Milan-based journalist specialising in architecture and interiors, Laura began her editorial career at Phaidon Press in London before relocating to Milan in 2016. She has contributed to international outlets including The New York Times and Architectural Digest, alongside her role at Wallpaper*. Through reporting not only across Europe but also in India, China, Lebanon, and beyond, she has tracked how design cultures mature and take shape in different regions — a vantage point well suited to reconnecting contemporary Japanese product design with global currents.
As Formafantasma’s participation last year demonstrated, we believe that including practising creators — not just curators and editors — on the committee provides a vital source of inspiration for alter.’s participants. From a diverse list of candidates, we are delighted to welcome Faye Toogood, a designer whose work moves fluidly across the boundaries of furniture, fashion, sculpture, and interiors.
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After studying art history at the University of Bristol, Faye spent roughly eight years as an editor at The World of Interiors before launching her independent practice in 2008, following an installation for Comme des Garçons. She has since developed a body of work centred on the ongoing series Assemblage, with pieces held in collections worldwide, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Vitra Design Museum. In 2025, she was named Maison&Objet “Designer of the Year,” and as “Guest of Honour” at the Stockholm Furniture Fair, she presented MANUFRACTURE, an installation that opened up her own making process. Her cross-disciplinary practice resonates deeply with the spirit of collaboration and prototyping that alter. champions.
Considering the future of product design in Japan calls not only for Western perspectives but also for voices rooted in Japan and Asia. This year, we are honored to welcome Jun Aoki — one of the defining figures of contemporary Japanese architecture and an internationally active practitioner — as a committee member.
Aoki has designed an extensive body of commercial, civic, and residential architecture, including the series of Louis Vuitton stores beginning with Louis Vuitton Omotesando, as well as the Aomori Museum of Art, completed in 2006. In 2019, he was appointed Director of the Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art, where he led its renewal in collaboration with Tezzo Nishizawa. In 2025, he further expanded his practice as curator of the Japan Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, presenting IN-BETWEEN – A Future with Generative AI. His activities continue to expand year by year, reaching well beyond architectural design itself. For alter. — an event that questions not only products but also the spatial presentations that surround them — Aoki’s participation carries particular significance.
What These Five Perspectives Bring into View
Last year’s committee gathered diverse voices from around the world. This year, the committee has been shaped by five individuals whose perspectives cast an even wider net in rethinking the value of the “product.” Their fields — media, museums, architecture, and creative practice — are distinct yet deeply connected, and together they promise to enrich alter.’s ongoing experiments in collaboration and prototyping.
The open call for alter. 2026, Tokyo is accepting submissions until 30 April 2026. At alter., the secretariat does not pre-screen submissions: these five committee members will personally review every application and, through multiple rounds of discussion, determine the exhibited projects. What kinds of creation will emerge where these five distinct perspectives overlap? The experiment to renew the value of product design continues this year.