Past Events

University Reform in Japan

The Japanese Government is vigorously promoting university reform, and many universities are grappling with their own problems brought on by demographic change in Japan and various other issues.
Nagoya University is opening Asian Satellite Campuses in October 2014 in Vietnam, Cambodia and Mongolia to help train a greater number of graduates in these countries. In this session, President Michinari Hamaguchi of Nagoya University will explain some of the contentions regarding these reforms, and consider the problems Japanese universities will face in the future.

Excavating cultural heritage: the archaeological implications of the Great East Japan disaster three years on

As well as the terrible human cost, the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the Pacific coast of northern Honshu in March 2011 had a major impact on cultural heritage.

In the first instance a number of museums, stores and other facilities were directly damaged, and great quantities of heritage materials, both public and personal, were lost. This initial impact was to an extent mitigated by a programme of ‘cultural heritage rescue’. A second impact has been on buried archaeological sites and the important remains they contain in advance of the redevelopment of the region.

Concert: An Evening with Taro Takeuchi and Kyoko Murai

We welcome back the lute and baroque guitarist Taro Takeuchi to the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, who will be accompanied by soprano Kyoko Murai. They will be performing 17th century British music, with songs and instrumental music by Henry Purcell and his contemporaries.

Think Locally, Dance Globally: The Butoh Dance Form in the Age of Globalisation

One of the most important imports from Japan in the world of performing arts in the last half century has been the dance form butoh, which has shocked and captivated audiences around the globe. However, it appears that contact with Europe and America was changing butoh in significant ways.

Film Screening: August Shadows- Reflections on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Kirk Palmer will hold a film screening of ‘August Shadows’, a trilogy of moving image works – Murmur (2006), Hiroshima (2007) and War’s End: An Island Of Remembrance (2012). Centred upon Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Yakushima these works collectively examine how historical events manifest in the present-day physical substance of place, where the pall of the atomic bombings are a latent and unifying presence.

The Nuclear Myth and Japan’s Postwar Nationalism

The victims and survivors of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011 experience prejudice and bullying from Japanese society at large, according to Professor Nobuko Kosuge. The root of this problem may lie in nationalism and the narrative of the atomic bombings in postwar Japan.

Disaster Management After the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami

The consequences of the 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami made this event the most expensive natural disaster recorded in the world to date. The Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team (EEFIT) outlined key lessons following 2 years of recovery after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, involving topics such as tsunami hazard and risk assessment, the nuclear industry, post-disaster housing, urban planning and disaster mitigation, response and recovery.

Governing Insecurity in Japan: The Domestic Discourse and Policy Response

Since the end of the Cold War, Japan’s security environment has changed significantly. While, on the global level, the United States is still Japan’s most important security partner, the nature of the partnership has changed as a result of shifting demands from the United States, new international challenges such as the North Korean nuclear programme and the rapid rise of China. At the same time, Japan has been confronted with new, ‘non-traditional’ security threats such as international terrorism, the spread of infectious diseases, and global environmental problems.

Toru Ishii: Delirious Metropolis

Based on the subject of physicality and topicality within the delirious metropolis, Toru Ishii’s first solo exhibition in the UK aims to achieve a hybrid of expression in elements such as the past and present and the digital and analogue. He challenges how traditional art can exist in this modern age, and attempts to find a new paradigm of art by employing long-established techniques. The artist was joined by Professor Lesley Millar, Professor of Textile Culture and Director of the Anglo-Japanese Textile Research Centre at the University for the Creative Arts.

Preserving Videogames: Gameplay as Cultural Heritage

Since they first blipped and bleeped to life in the 1970s, videogames have become one of the most pervasive global cultural forms. However, while a diverse array of game studies books, journals, courses and conferences abound, they typically share one thing in common: they focus on Europe and the US. A game studies student might easily be forgiven for thinking that Japan played but a supporting role in game history, culture or development, and yet a game fan would likely revere names such as Sega, Capcom and Nintendo.

Curator Talk: Yuko Hasegawa- Soft Conceptualism and the new generation of Japanese artists

The shared attitude of young Japanese artists in the 2000s was to turn elements of their surroundings, such as news, society, culture and nature, into tools that can be freely incorporated into their artwork. In a complex time when it is hard to understand current situations or social structures, this must be the process to form a new reality.

Shuji Terayama: No bird exists that can fly higher than the imagination

Shuji Terayama (1935-1983) is known outside Japan mainly as the writer-director of Fellini-esque films such as Death in the Country and Farewell to the Ark. In his own country, it was his poetry that thrust him into the national consciousness at the age of eighteen. His experimental theatre troupe, formed in 1967, cemented his status as a leading figure in the boundary-challenging cultural ferment of the time.