January 2022 Message from the Executive Director

Those born in the Year of the Tiger, which begins at the start of the lunar New Year, are thought to be both confident and unpredictable, courageous and ambitious, qualities that may be especially relevant in 2022.

We start the year with an online Third Thursday Lecture looking forward to the publication of a new book that captures one of our major projects from the old year, the exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre Leiko Ikemura: Usagi in Wonderland. While the exhibition itself closed in December, Ikemura’s powerful work Usagi Kannon continues to keep watch over the University of East Anglia campus from its vantage point in the Sainsbury Centre Sculpture Park where it will remain on long-term loan. We will use this Third Thursday to set Ikemura’s work in context with some of the other contemporary art projects with which the Sainsbury Institute has been involved.

Our MA students are already busy – with some of them selected to join Dr Ryoko Matsuba, our Lecturer in Japanese Digital Arts and Humanities, recording some of the Japanese art treasures at the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. We are grateful to Dr Alfred Haft of the British Museum for his excellent lecture on the Hokusai exhibition there in December. This talk is now available online in its entirety, along with a report by another of our MA in Interdisciplinary Japanese Studies students, Asha Bardon.

Late last year we also piloted a further new initiative in partnership with Kobo A-B, a Japanese boutique here in Norwich, for a workshop on the theme of boro textiles and their aesthetic of patching and repair. We are discussing further such ventures with Nigel and Hiroko Aono-Billson, who provide a summary of what the project is all about.

The Sainsbury Institute wishes all our friends and supporters in Norwich, Norfolk and around the world a very happy and healthy New Year.

Professor Simon Kaner
Executive Director