April 2022

While it remains impossible for most of us to enter Japan at this time due to continuing pandemic restrictions – which we hope will be eased as soon as possible – and so we cannot experience the cherry blossoms in Japan again this year, the first blooms have been spotted on some of the 30 flowering sakura trees planted around the Cathedral Close, within sight of the Institute, on the University campus and at various locations around Norwich. We are very grateful to the Embassy of Japan and all involved in the Sakura Project, which has seen over 6000 sakura trees planted around the country. I am writing this in […]

We interviewed Dr Sadamura Koto, Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellow at the Sainsbury Insitute, and Israel Goldman about the exhibition, Kyōsai: The Israel Goldman Collection at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Watch both videos to discover how curators, researchers, and a collector understand Kyōsai’s works through dialogue with each other. Kyōsai: The Israel Goldman Collection Exhibition curated by Dr Sadamura Koto (Sainsbury Institute)The Royal Academy of Arts, London19 March — 19 June 2022Read more here

On Thursday 17th of March, the Sainsbury Institute hosted a Third Thursday Lecture, titled The Dawn of Modernist Dance in the Age of the Dancefloor, with introductions by Dr Ryoko Matsuba and speaker Dr Daria Melnikova. Dr Melnikova, who received her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 2018 and was a previous Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellow from 2020 to 2021, was kind enough to return to discuss a portion of her current research on the evolution of modernist dance in Japan, and the forum of creative exchange resulting from such dance. Recently, in March 2021, Melnikova published an article titled “What is Futurism? Russia and Japan Exchange Answers” […]