News

Women Make Animation: Animated Shorts from Japan on/from 13 March 2021

To celebrate International Women’s Day 2021, WOW Women’s Film Club invited Eiko Meredith, the director of Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival, to hand-pick a selection of animated shorts crafted by up-and-coming female animators working in Japan, and to organise an online Creative Workshop by Japanese animator and illustrator Chie Arai. The Japanese shorts can be watched live via the Eventive website on 13 March, and will remain available for a week.

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"An Affair with a Village" - Professor Joy Hendry's latest book

Released on Monday 15th February 2021, Extremis Publishing is pleased to announce a new book by Professor Joy Hendry. In An Affair with a Village, the renowned and award-winning anthropologist relates her experiences with the remarkable village of Kurotsuchi, where she undertook a year’s fieldwork as a doctoral student. She made a number of wonderful friends, and over

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Kathleen Reilly at work in Tsubame-Sanjo, Niigata

Kathleen Reilly, one of the 2019 Daiwa Scholars, is an artist and metalworker. In February 2021 she was featured on Japanese television to highlight her current work placement in Niigata Prefecture’s Tsubame-Sanjo, an area celebrated for its metalworking factories and workshops.

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【満員御礼】松本幸四郎氏による講演会「2020年に考える歌舞伎の伝統と革新」ご案内

歌舞伎は、演劇、舞、音楽、衣装が融合して繰り出されてきた日本が世界に誇る伝統芸能である。江戸時代（１６０３−１８６８）初期に出雲大社の巫女である出雲阿国が舞った踊りが歌舞伎の原点と言われている。しかし、1629年に女歌舞伎が禁止され、現在のような男性だけで演じる形態へと移行。現在、歌舞伎は日本国内のみならず世界各国で愛される舞台であり、2008年にはユネスコ無形文化遺産に登録された。歌舞伎は伝統芸能であると同時に前衛的でもあり、常々時代の流れに沿って進化を遂げている。歌舞伎舞台は独創的で、その時代の流行と伝統とうまく融合させることで、多くの観客の心を引き付けてきた。今回の講演会では、歌舞伎役者の松本幸四郎さんに歌舞伎役者の視点から見た「伝統と革新」について、「英国と歌舞伎のご縁」についてお話しいただく。また、歌舞伎がいかに昨今の新型コロナへ対応しているか、ならびに今後の歌舞伎の発展についての意見も伺う。

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"The Japanese: A History in Twenty Lives" by Daiwa Scholarship alumnus, Dr Christopher Harding

Former Daiwa Scholar Dr Christopher Harding’s new book,  The Japanese: A History in Twenty Lives was published in November 2020. The book’s twenty portraits take the reader from the earliest written accounts of Japan right through to the life of the current empress, Masako, via shamans and warlords, poets and revolutionaries, scientists, artists and adventurers.  (Read

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Carl Randall painting to be exhibited at Fuma Contemporary Tokyo: 17 to 31 October 2020

Artist and Daiwa Scholarship alumnus, Carl Randall’s new painting “Nihonbashi” will be exhibited in a group show in Tokyo from 17 to 31 October 2020. Other artists in the show include Yuta Nakazato, Ayako Kita, Ryota Nishioka, Kohei Yamada and Hoshiki Ara.

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Super Flatland at White Conduit Projects, London from 16 September to 18 October 2020

“A dozen artists from Europe and Asia inhabit ‘Super Flatland’ at White Conduit Projects. Some are there as an artistic strategy, either for aesthetic reasons or to generate confusion between what is 2D and what 3D. Others investigate the various ways in which reality might get ‘flattened’ – when it goes online, for example.”
-Paul Carey-Kent, 2020, Super Flatland

The exhibition includes work by Kate Groobey, winner of the 2018 Daiwa Foundation Art Prize, and runs from Wednesday 16 September to Sunday 18 October 2020.

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Carl Randall exhibiting at the Mall Galleries, and final chance to buy Japan Prints

Daiwa Scholarship alumnus and artist Carl Randall will be exhibiting a privately commissioned portrait painting as part of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Exhibition, the Mall Galleries London, 16 to 26 September 2020. And, mounted high-quality giclée prints of some of Carl’s Japan paintings will be on sale at the National Portrait Gallery London, for a very limited time only.

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Amanda Chambers firing work in Shigaraki - in the time of Snow, Sakura and Covid-19

Artist Amanda Chambers returned for a third residency at Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park in early 2020. “Life in the normally sleepy town of Shigaraki was frenetic. Tourists, excited by a TV drama based on a local potter, had started to visit en masse. When the virus hit Japan the hordes continued to come until the State of Emergency was declared and the town resumed its slow pace.” You can read a full account via the button below.

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Art Action UK event on 12 September 2020 - How We Value Art: Responses During the Covid-19 Crisis

Art Action UK is hosting an interactive online panel discussion on Saturday, 12 September (13:00 to 14:00 British Summertime). The discussion will focus on artists’ experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic – as lived in Japan, the UK, France and Germany – with time for the audience to ask questions and share their experiences. Through this event, Art Action UK will seek to discover how countries can demonstrate the value arts and culture by actively supporting those who contribute to their economy and wellbeing.

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