Past Events

8 September 2025

The Impact of Women on Japanese History

Japanese history is not all shoguns and samurai: women played a prominent role. In the early centuries Chinese envoys called the part of Japan they knew ‘Queen Country’ because there were so many female rulers. In her talk Lesley Downer told the story of Himiko, the shaman queen, and of some of the early empresses, along with brilliant and powerful figures such as Nene-dono, Hideyoshi’s wife, who continued to wield power from behind the throne, and women writers and artists who helped shape Japanese history. By discussing the many roles women have played throughout Japanese history, Lesley provided a new and refreshing perspective on that history, while putting paid once and for all to the egregious stereotype of the ‘submissive geisha’.

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4 September 2025

Chashitsu: Auditory Tea Room

More than ritual, Chadō, the Way of Tea, is also a deeply sonic practice: a choreography of sound, silence, gesture, and space. Chashitsu, the tea room, becomes a resonant vessel for listening—a place where every element is attuned to create a shared sonic awareness. Drawing on this tradition, violinist and composer Midori Komachi and MSCTY founder/producer Nick Luscombe explore the aesthetics of Japanese sound design and immersive experiences grounded in the shared language of music and architecture. Their project, Chashitsu: Auditory Tea Room —a concert premiering at the Royal Albert Hall on 14th October 2025 alongside the launch of Komachi’s album of the same name — brings a new perspective to the tea room as a ‘sonic architecture’. Join Komachi and Luscombe as they offer an insight into their creative process ahead of the premiere, inviting you into a deeper Way of Listening.

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2 September 2025

Special Video Screening:
SCARLET RIVER by Reijiro Wada

In a reflection on the current intensification of geopolitical conflicts, the Daiwa Foundation invites visitors to view the video work SCARLET RIVER by Reijiro Wada. It was filmed in 2023 at the Motoyasu River, which flows through the centre of Hiroshima City. The landscape’s associated tragedies are captured through a double-glazed window filled with red wine, creating a scarlet scene. An image of the water surface is inverted horizontally and vertically and reconstituted crosswise to create a vision of the moment the atomic bomb exploded. The river now flows calmly as if nothing had happened in the past. The ripples of the sightseeing boats passing by transform the reflections of the A-bomb Dome and the present-day city on the water surface into a hallucinatory loop.

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30 July 2025

Populism and New Political Divisions in Japan after the Election

Dr Masato Kamikubo examined how Japan’s unique political structure shapes its political landscape and how it differs from or resembles other democratic countries around the world. Specifically, he discussed the uniqueness of the Liberal Democratic Party’s ‘catch-all party’ system and how it has suppressed populism in Japan, compared with global democratic trends. Additionally, he analysed the emergence of new political forces such as ‘digital innovation groups’ driven by digitalisation, and the resulting shifts in political fault lines. The aim is to provide a concise overview of the future of Japanese politics and the broad implications of the elections.

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29 July 2025

An Evening Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Newly revised and staged for live performance, ‘The Priest’s Tale’ by award-winning British actor/playwright Michael Mears is his adaptation of one of the atomic-bomb survivors’ accounts from John Hersey’s remarkable book ‘Hiroshima’. Father Wilhelm was a German Jesuit priest living in Hiroshima, who survived the blast but witnessed much of the destruction. Told with compassion, warmth and flashes of humour, ‘The Priest’s Tale’ is a clear-eyed depiction of the pity of war… and of the terror wrought at the start of our nuclear age.

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26 June 2025

戦後80年ーアウシュビッツ、原爆、日本の桜

第二次世界大戦中のアウシュヴィッツ収容所での大量虐殺と広島・長崎への原爆投下は、人類史上最も悲惨で残酷な出来事であった。この7月に刊行される「アウシュヴィッツの聖人を追いかけてーーある被爆者と桜守の物語」（岩波書店）は、アウシュヴィッツで自らの命を他人に捧げて斃れたマキシミリアノ・コルベ神父、長崎原爆を生き延びた小崎登明氏、桜研究家で平和活動家の浅利政俊氏の3人の足跡を重厚に描いたノンフィクションで、3人が想像を絶する苦しみを通じていかに悪と闘い、光と人間性を追求したかを綴る。本ウェビナーでは、著者の阿部菜穂子氏がまず、主人公3人の人生と平和へのメッセージを語った後、今も健在の浅利政俊氏が北海道から参画し、阿部氏と対談。桜を海外に贈り続けてきた浅利氏の平和活動について語り合った。

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25 June 2025

Did the Atomic Bombs end World War II?

In August 1945, two atomic bombs were detonated over the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing thousands of people, including many civilians. A few days later, Japan officially surrendered, bringing World War II to an end. Conventional wisdom credits the dropping of the atomic bombs with Japan’s surrender and the end of WWII in Asia. Professor Richard Overy tells a different story in his new book Rain of Ruin: Tokyo, Hiroshima and the Surrender of Japan. In this webinar, moderated by Professor Endo, Professor Overy discussed his views on the use of the atomic bombs and how they changed the post-World War II world.

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23 June 2025

The Future of Housework: How Robots are Reshaping Family Life

As domestic technologies evolve, their impact reaches far beyond efficiency—shaping how we live, interact, and care within the household. In this joint seminar, Dr Lulu P. Shi, departmental lecturer at the Department of Education of the University of Oxford and a research associate at the Oxford Internet Institute and Sociology Department Oxford, and Dr Yumiko Oda, Professor of Marketing at the Faculty of Commerce, Nagoya University of Commerce and Business, explored the social implications of smart domestic technologies from complementary perspectives.

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19 June 2025

Cracking the Crab: Russian Espionage Against Japan

Professor James D.J. Brown presented his new book on the history of Russian espionage against Japan. Cracking the Crab tells the extraordinary full story of Russian intrigue targeting Japan, from first encounters in the eighteenth century to the Soviet declaration of war in August 1945. Colourful episodes include Gojong, King of Korea, being smuggled into the Russian legation dressed as a woman in 1896; the 1927 ‘Tanaka Memorial’, an infamous forgery purporting to be Japan’s hidden plan for world domination; and the secret intelligence of ‘Nero’, a Soviet agent supplying invaluable insight into Japanese strategy during the Second World War. From Russians murdered in broad daylight in Meiji Tokyo to Soviet honey traps and ‘white magic’ at the Battle of Nomonhan, this is a landmark history of the covert struggle between two great powers of the modern age.

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18 June 2025

The Second Trump Administration: A Changing International Order

Trump’s second term has been impacting international relations between the US and the rest of the world at a whirlwind pace. The US-led international order established after WWII is shifting, bringing uncertainty on security, defence, and free trade to NATO, Japan, and the rest of the world. In this webinar, moderated by Bill Hayton of Chatham House, Japan’s former Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Hitoshi Tanaka discussed the new Trump Administration and its effects on the global order. How is the post-WWII international system changing, what are the potential impacts on Japan, and what can Japan do to mitigate them?

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22 May 2025

National Ballet of Japan at the Royal Opera House

Miyako Yoshida, former Principal of the Royal Ballet and now Artistic Director of the National Ballet of Japan, discussed her work there, her motivation in bringing Giselle to the UK, her daily practice routines in Japan, and her challenges and goals as an artistic director.

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15 May 2025

Talk in Edinburgh: Voices of Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors

In this talk in Edinburgh, Chiyoko Motomura, who was six when the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, described what happened on the 9th of August 1945, along with her personal memories. Dr Masao Tomonaga, who was only two and devoted his career to studying the medical effects of the atomic bombs, gave his view of the lessons we need to learn and asked what we can do to help. Finally, Tomoko Ōtaki, a second-generation A-bomb survivor, shared her activities including her views about the role of the second generation.   

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