26 May 2026
The Second Law of Thermodynamics holds that the universe is always tending towards disorder. Ultimately all structures disintegrate and no system can withstand the flow of time. This is the fundamental direction of nature. How then is it possible that life, as we know it, can give rise to things that are beautiful, sublime and have profound meaning for us?
How far does the glinting light of life reach in a chaotic cosmos?
4 March 2026
Join us for a private view of Hikaru Fujii’s solo exhibition at the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, Lines, Gazes, Landscapes. Fujii is one of Japan’s most prominent contemporary artists, primarily working with film to explore the role of artistic practice within today’s social and political conditions. His practice is grounded in extensive historical research and frequently draws on archival materials related to Japanese imperialism and colonial occupation. This exhibition brings together several works by Fujii, shown in the UK for the first time, to examine moments in which empire and disaster appear side by side, occupying the same space.
9 September 2025
Join us for a private view of the group exhibition, ひろしま/hiroshima. To mark the 80th anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, this exhibition of work by three acclaimed Japanese women artists shifts its gaze to another side of the city and its people – the changes, the things that remain, the personal and genuine memories – the everyday, the ordinary and contemporary society. This exhibition encourages us to see Hiroshima differently, as a city that was traumatised, once again teeming with life.
The doors will open at 5:00 pm. Guests who have booked in advance are welcome to visit the gallery any time between 5:00 pm and 7:45 pm.
26 March 2025
Join us for a private view of Tomoko Yoneda’s solo exhibition in the UK at the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation. This exhibition presents a selection of photography produced over the past thirty years by London-based Japanese artist Tomoko Yoneda. Among the works presented are photographs from her seminal series Scene that revisit sites of historic conflict and unspoken trauma, and DMZ, in which the artist captures the quiet beauty of native flora in Korea’s demilitarized zone. A display in the ground floor library features silver gelatin prints from her series Between Visible and Invisible, focusing on texts of personal significance to major historical and intellectual figures of the 20th century.
28 January 2025
Join us for a private view of Sayuri Ichida’s first solo exhibition in the UK, transiənt (‘transient’) at the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation. This event will offer a first opportunity to explore selected works from Ichida’s two photography series, ‘Absentee’ (2020-2021) and ‘Ctrl Shift + J’ (2023-). Drawing from personal experiences of loss, grief, and life abroad, Ichida’s works explore the ephemeral nature of life and existence. Through these series, she revisits and processes the past, reflecting on the complex ways we experience time – distortion, repetition, and regression – when memories intertwine with the present. Showcasing over 30 pieces, the exhibition invites viewers to immerse themselves in her delicately processed monochromatic images that integrate her emotional landscapes across multiple temporal dimensions.
8 October 2024
Join us for a private view of Noguchi Rika’s first solo exhibition in the UK since 2004, Life on Planet Earth at the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation. Combining video and photographs, this exhibition conveys a sense of wonder at being in the world as well as the particularity of being human.
The doors will open at 6:00 pm on Tuesday 8th October 2024. Guests are welcome to visit the gallery anytime between 6:00 pm and 7:45 pm with advanced booking.
30 May 2024
This event provided the first opportunity to explore Masuda’s installation works at the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation.
In her body of work, Masuda takes an intimate look at contemporary ecological traumas and biopolitics seen in particular chemical infrastructures or nuclear catastrophes. In this exhibition, Masuda provides a poetic, ontological breath which fosters a sense of interspecies belonging and points to the non-autonomous essence of all living agents.
7 March 2024
Join us for a private view of Miyuki Okuyama’s first UK solo exhibition, Japan, outside Japan. This event will provide the opportunity to explore Okuyama’s two recent works, Dear Japanese: Children of War (2012-17) and Michinoku Homeward: Walking towards the Northeast (2021) at the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation. Dear Japanese (2012-17) is a documentary made from her personal point of view as a Japanese individual living in the Netherlands, portraying the children of Japanese soldiers and Dutch-Indonesian women, born during the Pacific War in Indonesia, now living in the Netherlands. Michinoku Homeward: Walking towards the Northeast (2021) is a very personal documentary about Michinoku, Okuyama’s home region in north-eastern Japan.
14 September 2023
This event provided a first look at the work of Sumi Kanazawa and hear her discuss with Jonathan Watkins the ideas and inspiration behind her work for the exhibition Erase and See. Kanazawa’s work Drawings on Newspapers exemplifies her understanding of the contradictions and discrepancies that characterise our past and present. Kanazawa suggests ways of being more imaginative about how to live now, and problematises distinctions conventionally drawn between individuals, politics and society, and between public and private identities.
15 June 2023
This event provides the opportunity to have a first look at the work of Bikky Sunazawa. Bikky Sunazawa was one of Japan’s most prominent post-War sculptors. Born in Hokkaido, he was self-taught, developing a practice that was concerned essentially with self-expression through capturing the spirit of human and animal subjects. He is most renowned for his woodcarving, sometimes for public sculptures, but also made abstract paintings and drawings, accessories and furniture. This exhibition, TENTACLE, showcases a number of Bikky’s sculptures, wooden masks, paintings and drawings, made during his mature period, 1975 – 1986, when he was living in Otoineppu village, Hokkaido.
