Ito Tari (1951–2021) was born in Tokyo. She enrolled at the Faculty of Art at Wako University in 1969, when social movements including the student movement were gathering pace in Japan, and started pantomiming after becoming interested in forms of expression involving the body. She studied performance in the Netherlands from 1982 to 1986, a period when she took an interest in issues including feminism and the human rights of sexual minorities. In 1996, she came out as lesbian in the performance Self-Portrait, which she continued to perform for many years. She founded the Women’s Art Network (WAN), and organized the “Women Breaking Boundaries 21” exhibition in 2000. In 2003, she established PA/F Space, a site where performance art and feminism meet, in Waseda, Tokyo. The space hosted events highlighting sexual minorities and was used by a broad audience. Ito passed away from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2021.

Photo: ITO Tari, From the performance video, One Response for Bae Bong-gi and Countless Other Women,“Women In Between : Asian Women Artists1984-2012,” Okinawa Prefectural Museum & Art Museum, 2012 December [related image] Courtesy tarinokai