Reiko Sudō is the Design Director of renowned textile design company NUNO. Together with her team, she seeks collaborators from Japan’s textile tradition to create innovative new fabrics that blend Japan’s traditional dyeing and weaving practices with modern cutting-edge technology and materials. Her works are in the permanent collections of New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, and Tokyo’s National Museum of Modern Art, to name just a few. 

Sudō is the recipient of the Mainichi Design Award, Japan Interior Design Award, and the prestigious Award for Arts Encouragement from the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan. In addition to her work for NUNO, she helps pioneer more sustainable practices in fabric and clothing manufacturing through advising the international retail company, MUJI, as well as serving on the Japan Design Committee.  

Naomi Pollock is an American architect and author who writes about design and architecture in Japan. She holds a BA from Dartmouth College in Classics, an M.Arch from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and a Masters in Engineering from Tokyo University. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications on both sides of the Pacific, including A+U, Dwell, Jutakutokushu, Kinfolk, Wallpaper*, and Architectural Record, for whom she is the Special International Correspondent. Her article “Portland Japanese Garden Cultural Village by Kengo Kuma & Associates” appeared in Architectural Record’s August 2017 issue. In addition to editing NUNO: Visionary Japanese Textiles, she has written several books, including Modern Japanese House, Made in Japan: 100 New Products, Jutaku: Japanese Houses, Sou Fujimoto and Japanese Design Since 1945: A Complete Sourcebook. She was also the co-author of New Architecture in Japan and a contributor to Shigeru Ban: Humanitarian Architecture.  Her newest book, Vanishing Japan: Modern Architecture, Gone But Not Forgotten will be released in September, 2026.  

Aki Nakanishi is Co-Chief Executive Officer of Portland Japanese Garden and an international cultural diplomacy leader whose three-decade career bridges the arts, global partnerships, and U.S.–Japan relations, strengthened by the scholarly perspective he brings through his research at the University of Cambridge.