Yasuyuki Sato

Yasuyuki Sato is a Japanese mokuhanga practitioner and arts administrator who serves as the Director of MI-LAB (Mokuhanga Innovation Laboratory) and Chair of the International Mokuhanga Association (IMA) Japan Board. He is one of the key organizational figures in the international mokuhanga community, responsible for sustaining and expanding the institutional infrastructure that supports water-based woodblock printmaking worldwide.

As MI-LAB Director, Sato continued the artist-in-residence programs established by the late Keiko Kadota, who founded MI-LAB in 2011 as the successor to the Nagasawa Art Park mokuhanga training program (1997–2011), giving international artists a platform to study traditional mokuhanga techniques in Japan under master carvers and printers. After Kadota's death in 2017, Sato took on the responsibility of maintaining MI-LAB's mission of fostering cross-cultural exchange through mokuhanga education. MI-LAB's residency program, originally based at Lake Kawaguchi in Yamanashi Prefecture, has more recently extended to Echizen in Fukui Prefecture — the region that hosted the 2024 International Mokuhanga Conference — an area with a centuries-long tradition of washi papermaking that provides a natural connection to the materials of mokuhanga.

Sato also serves as the Head Office Director of the IMA and chairs the Center for the Science of Human Endeavor (CfSHE), the organizational body that hosts MI-LAB. His work has been instrumental in connecting the traditional craft communities of Japan with the growing international network of contemporary mokuhanga practitioners through conferences, residencies, and educational programs.