Shai Ohayon
Project Manager, Curator
Shai Ohayon (BEd and Honour's BFA) is an educator and a curator with extensive experience in both the formal and informal education sectors and in the arts. His education-related work experience includes many years of classroom teaching (Canada & UK), education and art-based project development and management for the local authority in the Greater London Area, curriculum development, change-management in education, consultancy on teaching & learning methodologies and the adaptation of the National Curriculum.
Shai's contemporary approach to education theory and deep understanding of implementation saw him as an education officer, managing borough-wide projects at Hammersmith & Fulham Council in London, as education consultant at Ebbio Ltd., UK based education consultancy contracted by London's LEAs, and as an independent consultant, developing materials, consulting and training teachers for Prospero Teaching, Cactus World Wide and a number of schools.
Shai's curatorial experience focuses on strategies to benefit both artists and the wider public through challenging the formal gallery system and through creating new opportunities for artists. Shai started his arts career as the director of ArtGig in Toronto - a curatorial project that saw the transformation of many clubs and performance venues in Toronto into make-shift galleries for a duration of a day. The series ran for nine exhibitions and is now renowned in Toronto for launching several international careers.
In 2000, Shai relocated to London UK, where he managed art initiatives for the local government, consulted national arts organisations and was the curator of Fulham Palace and a guest curator at MOT International. His exhibition Made-in-China at Fulham Palace (2008), exploring the arts copying industry of Dafen village in China and initiating an independent arts organisation with China's Institute for Contemporary Observation to support Dafen's artists, received international press, including a radio documentary on BBC radio 4.
Since Shai's relocation to Tokyo, he joined RBR where he is curating a new contemporary art gallery and managing a new project that aims to enable local and foreign artists to exhibit in central Tokyo and to help facilitating a vibrant contemporary art scene in the city.
Shai aims to use his knowledge and experience in the arts and education sectors to develop at RBR projects that can combine both areas seamlessly to benefit both communities and the general public.
