Greetings from ‘the land of the gods’, Shimane prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast, where I am just wrapping up a research visit with colleagues from the Vikings in Asia project as part of our work on Japan and the maritime silk roads. Today we are off to visit the Izumo Grand Shrine and to hopefully take in some peonies for which the island of Daikanjima in Lake Shinji is renowned.
We were very fortunate to arrive just in time to catch the exceptional exhibition on Ishibashi Kazunori at the Shimane Art Museum, curated by Michiko Hayashi of the University of Tsukuba and Kazunori Yanagihara, curator at the Museum. Hayashi-san had travelled to London for our Transnational Japanisms conference, and spoke so engagingly about Ishibashi, who had studied at the Royal Academy of Arts under John Singer Sargent and had an illustrious career as a portraitist of many of the most eminent figures in Meiji society. The exhibition, the first major retrospective of Ishibashi, an important bridge between the art worlds of Victorian London and Meiji Japan, was an excellent way to end both this trip, and also our celebration of transnationalism as reported here by Olivia Butler.
We were delighted to be able to use the Transnational Japanisms conference to announce the revitalisation of our partnership with SOAS at the University of London through a new permanent Sainsbury Institute Lectureship in Japanese Art to be based at SOAS. The Director of SOAS has served on the Management Board of the Sainsbury Institute since its inception, and over the years we have been pleased to contribute to the development of the Japanese art holdings of the SOAS Library, complementing the collections of the Lisa Sainsbury Library. As part of this refreshed relationship, our Deputy Director, Professor Eugenia Bogdanova-Kummer, will become the Head of the London Office of the Sainsbury Institute while continuing with her important work in Norwich. Thanks to Professor Adam Habib, Director and President of SOAS, Professor Graeme Earl, Head of the College of Humanities, Professor Charlotte Horlyck, Head of the School of Arts, and Suzy Rushforth, Senior Philanthropy Manager, and everyone else involved in these discussions.
We were greatly honoured to welcome His Excellency Mr Hiroshi Suzuki, Ambassador of Japan to the UK, back to Norwich fifteen years after he first visited as Culture Minister at the Embassy when we established our Centre for Japanese Studies (CJS). CJS, now directed by Dr Eriko Tomizawa-Kay, our Sainsbury Institute Associate Professor in Japanese Arts at UEA, has gone from strength to strength, with five lecturers in Japanese language, two Japan historians and specialists in Japanese international relations and politics, literature and active research partnerships in computing, health sciences and economics. UEA also has agreements with more than 20 Japanese universities which facilitate UEA students’ studying in Japan and Japanese students from those universities studying at UEA, through the magnificent UEA Study Abroad programme managed by Katrien Verbruggen. The 15th anniversary reception was a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the past and look forward to the future, and introduce our students and faculty to our distinguished guests. The Ambassador and our Vice Chancellor, Professor David Maguire, who visited Japan in late 2024 (report available in p.15-20 here), both spoke very warmly of the importance of Japan to UEA. Following an exchange of gifts the Ambassador also enjoyed a refreshing glass of East Anglian ale, shortly after uttering the immortal Norfolk greeting “Ar ya reet bor!”.
We were also delighted to welcome Paul Madden CMG back to Norwich. Paul generously serves as Special Advisor to the Board of CJS. Formerly British Ambassador to Japan he is now Chair of the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, an organisation which has been of the greatest importance to the development of Japanese Studies in Norwich, including supporting the appointment of our initial Sasakawa Lecturer in Contemporary Japanese Visual Media, Ulrich Heinze, and encouraging the development of our graduate student cohort through more than 25 Sasakawa Postgraduate Studentships. It was also wonderful to have with us Mr Shinji Yamaguchi of Yakult UK. Yakult generously supported our first University Lectureship in Japanese Language and now support our Third Thursday lectures. We were also very fortunate to have Mr Kei Hirata, CEO of Toshiba Europe, representing the Toshiba International Foundation, which has supported multiple initiatives both at CJS and the Sainsbury Institute currently including our Interdisciplinary Japanese Studies conferences and Japan and the Maritime Silk Roads. Olivia Butler’s report on the events in May details all of the organisations which so generously supported our various events, and I would like to reinforce our gratitude to each of them – we could not do what we do without you.
You will also have read about the truly exceptional gift to the University of East Anglia from our benefactor Lord Sainsbury of Turville through his Gatsby Charitable Foundation for the restoration of the Sainsbury Centre, the iconic home of the outstanding art collection donated to the University by his parents, our founding benefactors, Sir Robert and Lady Sainsbury. Gatsby’s support of the Sainsbury Institute enables us to continue to deliver on our founding mission.
I am grateful to Ian Kikuchi of the Imperial War Museum for all of his enthusiastic help with our events in May and for his report on Katsuo Suzuki’s excellent Robert Sainsbury Lecture which took the place of our May Third Thursday. You can read his report here. This month we look forward to a talk by our Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellow, Clara Momoko Geber-Mérida, on Women in Japan’s Contemporary Craft: Crossing the Boundaries of ‘Tradition’ in Arakawa, Tokyo. I hope to see you there in person or online.
As soon as I get back to the UK I will be brushing off my walking shoes for our walk along the pilgrimage route from Norwich to Walsingham. Many thanks in advance to everyone who has been involved in planning this – part of our research into the art and archaeology of religious experience growing out of our Nara to Norwich project. Come and join us or cheer us along if you can. Thanks to UEA’s Impact Accelerator Grant for some additional financial support.
I close with a happy update about our former colleague and academic associate Dr Oscar Wrenn. An alumnus of the Norwich School, our neighbours in the Cathedral Close, and after working in our Centre for Archaeology and Heritage, which itself followed a five-year stint in Kagoshima on the JET programme, Oscar took the MA in International Development at UEA before heading back to Japan for a PhD funded by the Japanese Government MEXT programme at Kobe University, during which time he lived and undertook fieldwork in Nagawa-machi, Nagano prefecture, which you will recall is the Japanese partner in the World’s First Twinned Archaeological Sites (Hoshikuso Prehistoric Obsidian Mines and Grimes Graves Neolithic Flint Mines here in Norfolk), a relationship which marks its first decade this summer (more on this in later issues of this e-bulletin). While driving through Kyoto I happened to spot Oscar on the pavement at the Sanjo-Kawaramachi intersection (what are the chances of that in this country of 130 million?). We were able to meet up for an iced coffee and matcha. Many congratulations to Oscar on securing a new job as Associate Professor in Sociology and Anthropology at Doshisha University in Kyoto. We are all very proud of you.
Professor Simon Kaner
Executive Director