29 September 2015
The Okinawa islands in the south had long been independent as the Ryukyu Kingdom and played a crucial role as the conduit of trade between Japan and the outside world. Naturally, many foreign ships had passed through- in some cases were stranded in the area- and are now found as underwater archaeological sites.
More info22 September 2015
The Missing Post Office invites you to post a letter, like a message in a bottle, which will float on the sea of time. A letter to and from anyone, anything, anywhere and at any time, which will one day be washed ashore.
More info17 September 2015
Kouichi Tabata’s first UK solo show explores drawing beyond line- and mark-making, tending towards the painterly. His paintings of still-life subjects are sequenced into animations as a kind of ‘still footage’, leading to an exploration of the dimensions between different layers of meaning in which these opposing forces operate. Looped paintings relinquish tranquil scenery, instead enveloping the audience into a restless, endless cycle.
More info14 September 2015
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s bid to internationalise Japan’s universities is part of his plan to revitalise the nation’s economy. Professor Miki Horie of Ritsumeikan University will discuss how the government hopes to solve Japan’s structural problems by transforming the higher education sector.
More info5 August 2015
This year in August will be the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. An Englishman, Mike Stevenson, has in his possession two collections of art works made by children in Japan in the aftermath of World War II.
More info21 July 2015
Natasha Pulley (Daiwa Scholar 2013) will read from her novel ‘The Watchmaker of Filigree Street’. Set in London in 1883, the novel centres on a watchmaker who is a Japanese immigrant at the time of the Fenian bombings of Whitehall.
More info6 July 2015
This event at the Foundation is timed to coincide with the week of a Zen master’s 80th birthday, and followed a larger exhibition of his calligrahpy at Yugagyo Dojo in south London. Daizan Rōshi introduced Zen Master Shinzan’s artworks, giving some art-historical and cultural background. This was followed by a demonstration of the art of the Zen brush.
More info29 June 2015
Berlin based artist Youki Hirakawa talked about his oeuvre to date in relation to the main themes that inspire his works. Time and place are two notions of special interest for Hirakawa. Reflecting on the expanded sense of these principal vectors of orientation, he creates poetic works of art that often move us in their singular beauty.
More info25 June 2015
The poems in One More Civil Gesture, the first full collection of poetry by C. E. J. Simons, were written in Japan, where he has lived since 2006. The book contains poems inspired by Japan, and also by frequent travel in Burma, China and Mongolia.The gestures of these poems are ‘civil’ in two senses: in their bold and exciting use of inherited forms, whether Western or Japanese; and in their aspiration to eschew self-expression in search of representations of the human capacity to engage with the other – to be civilised through immersion in the unknown.
More info24 June 2015
Bizen (named after Bizen in Okayama Prefecture, where it is produced) became the most popular type of ceramic in Japan during the Edo period because of its superior clay and durability. Many tea ware masterpieces were made in this period, and it became renowned for its red-brown hues and flourishes of melted ash.
More info18 June 2015
The Daiwa Foundation welcomed Taro Takeuchi back to perform in a concert of the early guitar and harp-lute.
More info17 June 2015
How ready is Japan to be a society like Britain, which accepts a diversity of races and cultures in society? And is British society really as accepting of diversity as it claims to be? Join us in the latest of our annual seminars on diversity in the UK and Japan to discuss this important topic.
More info
