The Austrian Cultural Forum’s Beate Sirota Gordon Award is given to an artist from Austria to realize a project in the field of gender justice in Japan. The award was launched in 2022 in honor of Austrian-born Beate Sirota Gordon (1923-2012), the author of Articles 14 and 24 of the Japanese constitution after World War II, which gave women unprecedented rights in marriage, family, and society.

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The Beate Sirota Gordon Award recognizes the accomplishments of an Austrian or Austria-based artist in the field of gender equality and women’s rights, by granting financial support for the creation of a new artistic or cultural project in Japan, sponsored by the Austrian Cultural Forum Tokyo. The award is given out yearly on International Women’s Day (March 8), and has a special focus on supporting the work of young and emerging artists who explore the role of women and gender equality in the context of the 21st century. 

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The inaugural Beate Sirota Gordon Award in 2022 went to Austrian artist Martha Schnuderl for her project “DO YOU SEE ME NOW”, a documentary short film exploring the role of women, gender equality struggles, and the challenges of self-realization in contemporary Japanese society, seen through the eyes of a group of young Japanese collaborators. 

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In 2023, the Beate Sirota Gordon Award went to Vienna-based artist Elsa Okazaki for her project “INTO THE WILD”, a series of Japanese women portrayed as mythological characters, which explores the representation of gender in historic portrayals of Japanese deities and idols through the lens of contemporary photography.

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