In May, the Sainsbury Institute had one of its busiest weeks yet with various activities across Norwich and further afield in the UK.
The events began with a workshop in Cambridge on Friday 07 and Saturday 08 May exploring “The Role of Heritage in Shaping Ontological Security in the Contemporary World”. Held in collaboration with the Cambridge Heritage Research Centre (CHRC) at the University of Cambridge, the event marked the 26th Annual Heritage Symposium with an impressive programme of papers addressing how ontology and heritage contribute to ideas of identity, belonging, and reconciliation and commemoration through a shared past. Simon Kaner contributed to the discussion through his talk “Ontological security and post-war memory: Japanese heritage narratives of the Asia-Pacific War at 80” along with Katsuo Suzuki, Chief Curator of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, who recently curated an exhibition of wartime artworks for the 80th anniversary of the conflict. You can view the full programme from the event here. This was followed by a workshop at the Imperial War Museum on Tuesday 12 May, where participants continued to discuss themes relating to commemoration and reconciliation within the context of the museum’s displays. The group was joined by Ian Kikuchi, Senior Curator at the Imperial War Museum who has written a report on the activities here.
We then moved to Norwich and welcomed Katsuo Suzuki to give the annual Robert Sainsbury Lecture. The event is hosted in memory of Sir Robert Sainsbury who, along with Lady Lisa Sainsbury, generously donated their art collection to UEA and were the founding benefactors of the Institute. The lecture is hosted in turn by the three Sainsbury Units – the Sainsbury Institute, the Sainsbury Centre, and the Sainsbury Research Unit for the Arts of Africa, Oceania & the Americas – and is an important opportunity to bring together the colleagues, supporters and friends of all three institutions as a way to celebrate their continued research and activities as well as remembering the original generous donation. For the lecture, Mr Suzuki guided attendees through the core principle of “dialogue” that underpins the activities and displays of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. This dialogue can be understood on three levels: as a dialogue between the past and the present, where the past can be constantly interpreted and reinterpreted in the context of the present; as a transnational dialogue, where comparing and contrasting art from different regions can enrich our view of art history; and as a dialogue between museum and audience, where the displays at the museum become a vehicle to suggest and create new frameworks for audiences to understand and explore the past.
Attendees were then welcomed to a reception at the Sainsbury Centre before a dinner was held at Norwich City Hall. We were honoured to be joined by His Excellency Mr Hiroshi Suzuki, Ambassador of Japan to the UK, along with friends, colleagues and supporters of the Institute.
On Thursday 14 May, Ambassador Suzuki continued to tour some of the major cultural institutions of Norwich beginning with a visit to the Immersive Visualisation and Simulation Lab (IVSL) and Virtual Production Studio at Havers Road, part of Norwich University of the Arts (NUA). The studio is in part a collaboration with Sony and we were delighted to be joined by representatives along with Professor Kirk Woolford, Director of the Institute for Creative Technology at NUA. The visit marks a growing partnership between the Sainsbury Institute and NUA exploring the use of immersive technologies in research on Japanese arts and cultures. You can read NUA’s report about the visit here.
Ambassador Suzuki visited our headquarters in Cathedral Close where he was introduced to staff at the Institute and visited the Lisa Sainsbury Library. Having received the Foreign Minister’s Commendations from Ambassador Suzuki in November 2024, it was an important opportunity to showcase the Institute’s continued work, which the Ambassador described as “truly inspiring”, noting its dedication to advancing world-class research in Japanese arts and culture (you can read the report from the Embassy of Japan in the UK here).
It was then on to Norwich Cathedral for a tour with Dean Andrew Braddock, followed by an important visit to local celebrities Budge the Cathedral cat and Paddington, particularly poignant as the Ambassador has taken the social media world by storm as he travels the UK with his own Paddington.
Finally, Ambassador Suzuki made his way to UEA campus to visit the Sainsbury Centre and meet with the University’s Vice Chancellor Professor David Maguire to discuss UEA’s ongoing commitment to Japanese studies. This was followed by a reception to mark the 15th anniversary of both the Centre for Japanese Studies (CJS) and Centre for Archaeology and Heritage at the Sainsbury Institute. The milestone was especially meaningful for the Ambassador, who last visited Norwich fifteen years ago when the Centre for Japanese Studies was founded. The reception was attended by colleagues and students from across different departments at the University, particularly fitting given CJS’s continued interdisciplinary approach to the study of Japan.
That evening, events moved to London for the final lecture in our collaborative series with the Royal Asiatic Society and the Courtauld Institute. The series Japan Studies: Past, Present and Future has been an important collaboration between the three institutions where each has invited speakers to give talks on themes related to Japanese studies – you can view the full programme here. The closing talk was given by Professor Simon Kaner, who explored 150 years of Japanese archaeology at the start of a new project by the Sainsbury Institute drawing on research undertaken as part of the Sainsbury Institute’s Digital Futures project funded by the Ishibashi Foundation. Throughout the lecture, Professor Kaner drew on the transnational exchanges between Europe and Japan since Edward Sylvester Morse’s investigations at the Omori shell mounds in Tokyo in 1877. The paper was formulated as a two-part event, with this lecture focusing on the involvement of four European archaeologists in the early stages of Japanese archaeology (William Gowland; Eduardo Chiossone; Neil Gordon Munro; and Gerard Groot), complemented by a lecture for the Asiatic Society of Japan on Monday 18 May which focused on the key networks and figures in Japanese archaeology who travelled to Europe at this time (more information available here).
The transnational themes of the previous days continued with our conference Transnational Japanisms: Art, Craft, Design on Friday 15 and Saturday 16 May. This major international conference was jointly organised by the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, University of the Arts London (UAL), Stockholm University, and the University of Zurich. The event was held in memory of Professor Toshio Watanabe, late Emeritus Professor of Japanese Arts and Heritage at the Sainsbury Institute, Founding Director of the Research Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation (TrAIN) at University of the Arts London, and former President of the Japan Art History Forum (JAHF). Toshio’s immense impact on the field was demonstrated by the impressive response we received to both the call for contributions and conference registrations (with in-person spaces filled almost immediately and over 500 registrants to watch the livestream). Both days of the conference featured a range of contributions, including papers from scholars from across the world, short and Pecha Kucha style presentations, panel discussions, keynote talks, poster displays and pre-recorded papers that were available to view on the conference webpage. You can read the full programme including extracts here.
The first day was held at SOAS in collaboration with the Japan Research Centre (JRC). Following some words of welcome from both Professor Simon Kaner and Minister Shuji Maeda from the Embassy of Japan in the UK, the conference began with a keynote from Noriko Murai. The talk used Toshio’s ideas surrounding the ‘messiness’ of the transnational to explore Japonisme between adaptation and appropriation, its numerous different reference terms in both Japanese and European languages, and its legacy in broader society today. The lecture provided the perfect springboard to further explore, unpack and untangle the nature of transnational studies of visual cultures. Following two panels – ‘Transnational Japanese Art’ with papers from Michiko Hayashi, Hiroko Ikegami, and Kaoru Kojima, and ‘Japanese Art Beyond the Mainland’ with Maki Kaneko and Ayelet Zohar – as well as a session of shorter papers, the conference was closed by Professor Adam Habib, Vice Chancellor of SOAS, who gave an announcement of the re-affirmation of the relationship between the Sainsbury Institute and SOAS, with a new Sainsbury Institute Lecturer in Japanese Art to be appointed at SOAS in 2027.
The second day of the conference was held in the grand surroundings of the Banqueting Hall at Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London (UAL). With a view of the River Thames just beyond the speakers, attendees were presented with another engaging day of presentations and panel discussions. The first panels, ‘Japonisme and Worlding the Nation(s) I & II’ were organised by Stockholm University, and the University of Zurich as part of the research project Can Art Be National? Japonisme and Transculturation in Turn-of-the-Century Europe, funded by the Swedish Research Council. Following a series of short presentations around the theme of ‘Collecting and Exhibiting Japanese Art’, the Research Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation (TrAIN) organised a panel reviewing the themes address in the TrAIN@10 workshop in 2015, which Toshio was instrumental in, and explored the future directions of transnationalism. The conference was rounded off by a rich and reflective closing keynote by Ming Tiampo that drew together the themes of ‘Transnational Japanisms’ addressed in the papers across the conference and how we might be able to carry this into the field for the future.
Throughout the activities of the week, transnational approaches sat at the very heart of all of the events – from Suzuki-san’s discussion of transnational dialogue in the core principles of the museum, to Simon’s exploration of the transnational exchanges that paved the way for modern Japanese archaeology, the transnational cooperation and friendship mentioned by Ambassador Suzuki during his visit to Norwich, and the transnational theme of the conference. The events showed a clear celebration of the continued dialogue and cultural exchange facilitated by research, across institutions, disciplines, and national boundaries. This feels especially resonant in the context of the current state of global affairs and makes clear the importance of embracing, in Toshio’s words, the ‘messiness and porous’ nature of the transnational within the field.
We are deeply grateful to all individuals and organisations who have been involved in the arrangements for the events of this week including: Cambridge Heritage Research Centre (CHRC), the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, and the Japan Foundation Endowment Committee; the Imperial War Museum; the Sainsbury Centre and Sainsbury Research Unit for the Arts of Africa, Oceania & the Americas; the Embassy of Japan in the UK , Norwich City Council, Norwich University of the Arts (NUA), and Norwich Cathedral; the Royal Asiatic Society and the Courtauld Institute of Art; University of the Arts London (UAL), Stockholm University, the University of Zurich, the Swedish Research Council, Japan Art History Forum, the SOAS Japan Research Centre, and the Japan Foundation among many others.
Photographs by Andi Sapey unless otherwise stated.
Report by Olivia Butler, Digital Research and Project Coordinator (Sainsbury Institute)