Events by year: 2021

13 October 2021

Artist Talk: Distance and Sensation by Kota Takeuchi

In this talk chaired by Dr Lena Fritsch, Kota Takeuchi shared his latest project unearthing the history of the first transcontinental weapon called “balloon bombs.” Developed by the Japanese military in World War II, they were carried on high altitude air currents across the Pacific Ocean and landed across North America. News of these bombs and their effects were censored during the war so it is a largely unknown story. Takeuchi has explored national archives, visiting places the bombs landed across the United States, and talking to witnesses, to create a new video work situating the bombs in relation to the mythical Japanese blind figure Tenome.

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12 October 2021

Net Zero by 2050 in the UK and Japan

Many countries around the world are announcing pledges to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate change, with a global goal to achieve net-zero by 2050. But there are crucial questions over how these targets can be hit. For instance, what does the transport and energy supply industry need to do to meet the target? And what are the biggest challenges in carbon reduction? In this webinar, the speakers presented on current policies and strategies, and the challenges faced in meeting these targets, focusing on how the UK and Japan are planning to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

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5 October 2021

Rui Matsunaga in conversation with Dr Charlotte Mullins

Rui Matsunaga’s work combines a western Christian discourse with her Japanese cultural background. It is woven with animism and full of ambiguous stories. In this talk, the artist discussed with Dr Charlotte Mullins her philosophical interest in animism, and how the films and manga comics she grew up with strongly influenced the formation of her identity, from which she visualizes her stories and creates parallel worlds to reflect on the context of our current crisis. Matsunaga finds inspiration in Renaissance masterpieces filled with Christian mythology. She discussed how she has interpreted them into the symbolical and mystical language with which she describes the world.

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29 September 2021

The Influence of Colonialism in Art Practice

This webinar explored the intersection between colonialism and art from various perspectives. Janine Francois, a Lecturer at Central Saint Martins, explored the interconnections between colonialism, art museums and decolonisation based on their doctoral research at Tate. Dr Hiroki Yamamoto, a Lecturer at Kanazawa College of Art, addressed the topic of transnational legacies of colonialism in East Asia, including socially-engaged art in postcolonial Japan. Finally, Dr Khairani Barokka, an Indonesian writer, researcher, and interdisciplinary artist discussed how art practice in and about Southeast Asia has been shaped by colonialism.

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24 September 2021

The Future of Remote Working

The Covid-19 crisis and restrictions on mobility have forced a significant part of the labour force to work remotely over the last year, accelerating the trend towards working from home. An increasing number of employees see benefits in this working style, and improvements in productivity have also been reported. Meanwhile, the response from employers has been varied, with some of them calling for a prompt return to the office, and others providing the flexibility of a hybrid work approach, or even allowing their employees to work from anywhere in the world. So what will the future of work look like after Covid-19? In this seminar, chaired by Linda Yueh, the speakers analysed the current situation, the challenges, and the future of work, based on their own empirical research.

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17 September 2021

Health System during the Pandemic in the UK and Japan

The COVID-19 pandemic is exerting enormous pressure on health systems around the world. Even high-income countries previously considered to have resilient health systems have not always been able to respond adequately. In this webinar, the panellists analysed the current status and challenges of the health care systems in the UK and Japan as they respond to the worst pandemic for a century. They also compared the responses of these healthcare systems, both to coronavirus and to other diseases, with those of other European OECD members.

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9 September 2021

Private View: The Myth of Survival by Rui Matsunaga

The Private View was a chance to have a first look at the exhibition The Myth of Survival by Rui Matsunaga. The exhibition title points to the links between ‘myths’ and ‘survival’. Survival itself is something of a myth, as we live in a world in which famine, plague and war have not been solved. Meanwhile, we need myths for survival. The ‘human story’ described by Yuval Harari binds humans together by building our social identity as the strongest species on the planet.

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26 July 2021

Tokyo: Art & Photography

This beautifully designed book is a celebration of Tokyo: one of the world’s most creative, dynamic and fascinating cities. Visually bold and richly detailed, the publication looks at a city which has undergone constant destruction and renewal over its 400-year history and tells the stories of the people who have made Tokyo so famous with their boundless drive for the new and innovative – from samurai to avantgarde artists today. In this book launch, co-editors Lena Fritsch and Clare Pollard presented selected prints and photographs of the city, and discussed their research.

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15 July 2021

AI and the Ainu Language

AI is becoming ever more relevant in supporting the preservation of endangered languages, including Ainu, because of its capabilities for language transcription, translation, and search/retrieval. In this webinar chaired by Professor Roger K. Moore, Professor Tatsuya Kawahara, a leading researcher at Kyoto University, talked about his latest project developing automatic speech recognition and synthesis technologies to assist the preservation of the Ainu language. He was joined by special guest Sachiko Kibata (92), who shared her thoughts as one of the very few remaining speakers of the Ainu language, and presented some traditional Ainu folklore.

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13 July 2021

Mika Ninagawa in conversation with Dr Lena Fritsch

In this webinar chaired by Lena Fritsch, celebrated Japanese photographer and film director Mika Ninagawa spoke about her art practice, ranging from her iconic photographs of cherry blossoms and goldfish to her recent Utsurundesu series and portraits of Japanese Paralympics athletes. We also explored how she has adjusted her activities as a photographer during the pandemic, her feelings on social distancing and her view of the world today. Ninagawa’s work is currently on view at the Daiwa Foundation (15 June to 30 July 2021) and will soon also be displayed prominently at the Ashmolean Museum, as part of the Tokyo: Art & Photography exhibition.

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22 June 2021

Vaccines and Communication: the Global and Japanese Context listing image

Vaccines and Communication: the Global and Japanese Context

Wherever a new vaccine is introduced, there are always people who oppose it. It is more difficult to understand the benefit of not becoming ill, through vaccination, than the risk of becoming ill through an adverse reaction. But vaccine hesitancy appears in different forms for different vaccines, depending on the social context, and can be influenced by communication strategies. In this webinar, Natasha Loder discussed the status and challenges of the British COVID-19 vaccine communication strategy from a science journalist’s perspective, and Dr Riko Muranaka looked at the situation in Japan, based on two case studies, of cancer-preventing human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccines and COVID-19 vaccines.

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18 June 2021

Japan's Response to COVID-19

Although the impact of the pandemic has been much smaller in Japan than in other industrialised countries, there have still been substantial difficulties with Japan’s COVID-19 response. A third state of emergency has had to be announced in Tokyo, Osaka, and other prefectures to curb transmission. The vaccine roll-out has also been slow compared to other industrialised nations. In this webinar, Dr Hitoshi Oshitani analysed the Japanese response to COVID-19, and its current status and challenges.

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