TEN TEN NYC: The Arts Nonprofit That Meets at Juraku Every Wednesday

First, the disambiguation, because it catches people every time.

TEN TEN NYC is not the restaurant in Chinatown. Different thing entirely.

TEN TEN NYC is a 501(c)(3) arts nonprofit founded by Ayaka May Komatsu. In their own words, they are "dedicated to creating meaningful spaces that explore identity, mental health, and the human experience through art and dialogue."

They meet at Juraku every Wednesday night.

How This Started

I met Ayaka about four years ago. She was a customer.

TEN TEN did not exist then. What existed was a loose group of artists doing guest shows and popups, turning up inside other people's events because they did not have their own room yet.

Somewhere in there we became a sponsor. It was not a decision anyone announced. The first thing we ever gave them was a few cases of beer.

That is genuinely how it began. Beer, for a group of artists who needed something to hand people at a show.

It grew from there, slowly, in the way these things actually grow rather than the way they get written up afterwards.

Where It Is Now

The original group is not all together anymore. That happens, and it is not a sad story. Ayaka and Momo are still the core of it, and what they built outlasted the version of it I first met.

TEN TEN is a real organization now. They run:

• Weekly creative gatherings, which is the Wednesday night at Juraku
• Public art exhibitions and cultural events, including Kawaii Holiday and TEN TEN FEST
• An artist residency, giving emerging and mid-career artists space, mentorship and resources

They also act as fiscal sponsor for other people's events, which is invisible work that decides whether something happens at all. Showdown Chinatown is the one we know best, because we sponsor that too.

They have a roster of artists working under them that is considerably more impressive than a four year old beer sponsorship has any right to be attached to.

Who Is Under That Roof Now

The roster got serious while I was not paying attention.

Daisuke Muramoto works with them. In Japan he is half of Woman Rush Hour, the duo that won the 2013 manzai championship, and then he spent years putting nuclear policy and discrimination against Zainichi Koreans into his act, which cost him a great deal of the work that win had bought him. He moved to New York and started again in English, as a nobody, in rooms where nobody had heard of any of it. There is a documentary about that, I Am a Comedian.

Kojiman is with them too. He is from Sapporo, and made his US debut at Juraku in June of last year, at a pop-up we ran with TEN TEN and ShiroOne.

Civiatelier were part of it for a stretch as well. We held several events here with them, and Kay's work is the reason a fashion label ended up in the middle of an izakaya more than once. They are not working together at the moment, but that period happened and it was good.

And Ayaka has been putting time into Sushi Movement NYC, which is a version of something that already exists in Japan, brought over by a founder who wanted the New York equivalent. It is early. There is an Instagram and not much else yet, which is roughly where TEN TEN itself was when I met her.

The Part Nobody Puts In The Press Release

Funding is the problem. It has always been the problem.

TEN TEN is grassroots in the literal sense, not the marketing sense. A year of public art, a festival, a residency and fifty-odd Wednesday nights gets run on far less than you would guess, by people who are mostly doing it around other work.

So they are always looking. Grants, sponsors, partners, anyone who wants to put something behind it. If you run a business in this city and you have ever wondered whether a small sponsorship is worth anything, the honest answer is that ours started as beer and turned into this.

You can donate to them directly, and it is tax deductible.

Why We Keep Doing It

I have said before that I would rather sponsor than advertise, and TEN TEN is the clearest case I have.

We could have spent the same money putting our name in front of strangers. Instead there is a room full of artists in here every Wednesday, and a nonprofit that exists partly because a restaurant kept saying yes for four years.

Ayaka, Momo and the rest of the crew are close friends now. That is not a business relationship that turned into a friendship. It went the other way round, and I think that is why it has lasted.

Mental health is not a theme they picked because it tested well. The people running this care about it, and it shows in what they choose to put on.

Come On A Wednesday

The meetup is every Wednesday night at Juraku, 121 Ludlow. It is free, it is open, and you do not have to be an artist to sit in it.

Bring something you are working on, or bring nothing. Both are normal.

More of the people we work with.