March 2021 Message from the Executive Director

Ten years ago I was arriving in Japan to attend the last lecture by our Senior Advisor on archaeology, Professor Kobayashi Tatsuo, at Kokugakuin University in Tokyo, at the start of a trip that was to have established a series of collaborative agreements for our new Centre for Japanese Studies at the University of East […]

After the Tsunami: Japanese Contemporary Art Since 2011

The Tohoku Great Earthquake of March 2011 has been a turning point in Japanese contemporary art. While international art shows have continued to represent Japanese contemporary art through the very successful “pop art” styles of the 1990s and 2000s — associated with superstars like Murakami Takashi and Nara Yoshitomo — there was a very distinctive […]

Report for the talk “Online Lecture: Cultural Properties Recovered? 10 Years on from the Great East Japan Disaster”

March 11th, 2021, marks the tenth anniversary of the Tōhoku earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear plant disaster. These events devastated the coast of Tōhoku and shattered local communities. The Sainsbury Institute has continued to follow Japanese colleagues’ efforts to recover and preserve cultural heritage in the aftermath of the disasters. For the first anniversary in […]

Interview with Andi Sapey

Andi Sapey is a Norwich-based photographer who has worked with SISJAC for over 10 years, photographing events and documenting projects in both the UK and Japan. Recently, Executive Director Professor Simon Kaner sat down with Andi to discuss his career, his photographic process, and his experiences photographing Japan.  You can find out more about Andi […]