Wednesday 6 May 2026
6:00pm – 8:00pm

Shrines, Kami, and the Future: Shinto in the Digital Age

13/14 Cornwall Terrace, Outer Circle (entrance facing Regent's Park), London NW1 4QP

Organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation

This event explores how Shinto – centred on kami (deities or spirits) and shrines – continues to shape everyday life and imagination in contemporary Japan. Professor Kikuko Hirafuji will introduce the role of shrines as living spaces of practice and community, while also addressing the challenges they face in the digital age and in a rapidly ageing and shrinking society. Particular attention will be given to how forms of belief associated with animism are being reinterpreted and transformed in response to new social and technological conditions, including emerging practices such as rituals for robots.

Alongside Professor Hirafuji’s talk, Niall Hill, Lecturer in Immersive Factual Storytelling at UCL, will introduce Eight Million Gods, a new 360° virtual reality documentary, which attendees will have a chance to view. This immersive film is an encounter with people, places, and spirits of Shinto, introducing them to English-speaking audiences unfamiliar with the tradition, and tracing them into contemporary culture. The project forms the basis of a new inquiry into sacred experience in immersive media.

After the seminar, VR experiences will be available from 19:00 to 19:50. However, viewing sessions will be limited, so if you’d like to guarantee a VR viewing between 16:30 and 18:00, please register online here.

About the contributors

Professor Kikuko Hirafuji

Kikuko Hirafuji is Professor of Shinto Studies at Kokugakuin University, Tokyo, and a Visiting Scholar at SOAS, University of London. She holds a PhD in Japanese Literature from Gakushuin University, where her doctoral research focused on comparative Japanese mythology. Her research examines Japanese mythology and religious culture, exploring how myths have been interpreted and reimagined across history, art, and contemporary popular culture. She is also the producer of the documentary film Building Eternity: The Kami–Human Landscape of Izumo Taisha (2024), produced as part of the University of Tokyo’s ROLES project.

Niall Hill

Niall is an immersive artist and lecturer in Immersive Factual Storytelling at UCL. He has an MSci in Neuroscience and spent three years at the BBC producing virtual reality (VR) works, including Doctor Who: The Runaway. His commissioned projects include Hereafter, a VR documentary installation exploring afterlife beliefs, and Supercel, a projection-based interactive story set in a ruined Catalan church. His practice-based research explores how immersive experiences might draw on ritual, symbolism, and depth psychology to create meaningful and transformative encounters.