Welcome to the Year of the Horse, which in 2026 is combined with the element of fire, giving rise to various superstitions indicating, to those that believe in such things, that we are in for a year of breakthroughs, change and innovation.
For the Sainsbury Institute in Norwich the year began with a significant snowfall and exceptionally low temperatures, resulting in some particularly beautiful vistas around the Cathedral Close.
For the first Third Thursday Lecture of the year we welcome Professor Oleg Benesch from the University of York who will speak on his recent work on the samurai, re-examining the idea of Japan’s historical warrior class, in advance of the opening of the major new exhibition at the British Museum Samurai.
I thank Dr Liliana Janik of the University of Cambridge for her review of our December Third Thursday Lecture, an event which took us on a fascinating excursion to the Grand Shrine of Izumo involving many thought-provoking reflections on mythology, architecture, renewal, sustainability and mortality. We were delighted to welcome to Norwich for this lecture, Mr Charles Bodsworth, Chief Executive of the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation. The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation have supported our lectures and so much more, along with our other treasured sponsors, over so many years.
Earlier in December I got to visit the outstanding Art of Manga exhibition at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, curated by our own Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere, and attended the associated conference which featured both manga artists and their publishers. I encourage anyone who can get to San Francisco to visit this ground-breaking show. Many of the visitors on the day I visited were back for another look – such is the richness of material on display.
I was also able to attend the closing ceremony of the 19th Japanese Film Festival (Kinotayo) at the Maison de la Culture du Japon in Paris, where friends from Nagano prefecture were celebrating the importance of art and culture in their area. We were treated to a screening of the quite remarkable film by Momoko Seto Dandelion’s Odyssey. I will never look at blowballs in the same light again. It was also an opportunity to discuss plans for a workshop we are planning with the Materia-Mind project led by Professor Naoko Matsumoto of Okayama University in Japan, focusing on the French anthropologist and archaeologist André Leroi-Gourhan, who spent time in Japan in the late 1930s prior to his detailed studies of Palaeolithic cave art.
As mentioned last year, we are deepening our collaboration with the Museum of the Nara Prefectural Archaeological Institute. As part of this the Museum is currently hosting a panel exhibition about the Anglo-Saxon royal burial site at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk and the contemporary Fujinoki burial mound adjacent to the Hōryūji temple (read more here). I will be giving a talk about Sutton Hoo and its global connections and comparators at the Museum on Saturday 10th from 13:00 – it would be wonderful to see you there if you can make it! The talk will build on work already undertaken as part of our Global Perspectives on British Archaeology project.
A further December highlight was attending the reception marking the award of an Ambassador’s Commendation to the British Association for Japanese Studies at the Embassy of Japan in London, in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the Association. Many congratulations to all involved. This delightful occasion was also an opportunity for me to reflect on our own Centre for Japanese Studies at the University of East Anglia, which will mark its 15th anniversary in 2026 (about which more in future messages). Both the current President and Vice-President (Professor Jennifer Coates of the University of Sheffield and Dr Christopher J. Hayes of Chester University) are former colleagues at the Institute and UEA, and my CJS colleagues led by Dr Hannah Osborne, our Lecturer in Japanese Literature, have just relinquished their roles editing Japan Forum, published by the Association. I stepped down as Director of CJS in the autumn, succeeded by the excellent Dr Eriko Tomizawa-Kay, our Sainsbury Institute Associate Professor of Japanese Art in the School of History and Art History at UEA.
We are looking forward to receiving offers of presentations for our conference honouring the memory of Professor Toshio Watanabe which we will hold in London on 15-16 May 2025. Expressions of interest to date have reconfirmed just how significant a figure Toshio was for our field, his lasting impact and the tremendous regard in which he was held around the world.
We continue to be very proud of the achievements of all our Fellows and Academic Associates, and look forward to receiving applications for our Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellowships 2026-7. Congratulations are due to our former Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellow, Dr Stephanie Su, who has just published History Painting Crossing Borders: a Transnational History of Modern Art in Early Twentieth-Century China and Japan.
We are delighted to welcome Dana Arnold as our new part-time Professor of Art and Cultural Heritage. Dana joins us from the Manchester School of Architecture following a distinguished career including at the universities of Leeds, Southampton, Middlesex and UEA. Her latest book, Women and Architectural History: the Monstrous Regiment Then and Now perhaps resonates with our December Third Thursday.
Wishing you all a very Happy New Year.
Professor Simon Kaner
Executive Director