SCAN - Sendai Contemporary Art Network - consists of cultural/educational institutions in Sendai and its surrounding areas, including art museums, museums, art galleries and universities. It sets its aim in promoting visual art in the area, and was organized in 2005, in the occasion of launching "Sendai Visual Art Promotion Consortium Project - Sendai Art Walk", involving 8 institutions, among which Sendai Mediatheque, The Miyagi Museum of Art and The Miyagi University of Education as the core.

In 2007, building on the achievement of the Consortium Project, SCAN presents new "Sendai Art Work Project", with its extended network. The project's main theme being "Creation of the City of Five Senses", it aims at proposing a new way to enjoy contemporary art, together with encouraging art institutions in the area. SENDAI Pageant of Starlight and Sendai Tanabata are two of many more city-events with which the project interacts, producing art-programmes that highlight characteristics of the city in multiple and simultaneous fashion.

Being situated in the central city of Tohoku, SCAN engages itself in a number of cutting-edge activities - whose another instance is the pilot project of "Tohoku Art Guide ": an exhibition-guide of Tohoku area, encouraging one to tour around art-museums of Tohoku, - aiming to create an environment in which art is more accessible in everyday life.