Rehearsal for 'Towa Mura' at CatStrand, New Galloway

Recently funded

In order to see the type and variety of projects that the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation fund, please take a look at the successful projects from previous rounds:

Press Releases

March 2026 Press Release

September 2025 Press Release

March 2025 Press Release / September 2024 Press Release / March 2024 Press Release / September 2023 Press Release / March 2023 Press Release / September 2022 Press Release / March 2022 Press Release / September 2021 Press Release / March 2021 Press Release / September 2020 Press Release / March 2020 Press Release / September 2019 Press Release / March 2019 Press Release

Each PDF below lists the Small Grants and Awards approved per funding round.

March 2026 ROUND, PDF

SEPTEMBER 2025 ROUND, PDF

March 2025 Round, PDF

SEPTEMBER 2024 ROUND, PDF

March 2024 Round, PDF

September 2023 Round, PDF

MARCH 2023 ROUND, PDF

SEPTEMBER 2022 ROUND, PDF

MARCH 2022 ROUND, PDF

360Giving

We are also working with 360Giving to publish information about our grants in line with the 360Giving data standard. These lists can be found on our website here.

Open grant data – 360Giving – Daiwa foundation small grants and awards – Daiwa Foundation (dajf.org.uk)

A selection of current & forthcoming events and activities supported by the Foundation

A Small Grant supported travel by artists taking part in this upcoming exhibition at The Photographers’ Gallery: Japanese Women Photographers: From 1950s to Now which spotlights the work of 27 ground-breaking artists, from the 1950s to today, whose perspectives have shaped how Japan sees itself, and how it is seen by the world, Wednesday, 24 June 2026 to Sunday 27 September 2026.

A Small Grant was awarded to The Whitworth Art Gallery, to support academics travelling to give talks as part of a public lecture series, in collaboration with the Japanese Studies department at The University of Manchester, associated with Beneath the Great Wave: Hokusai and Hiroshige, the first exhibition at the Whitworth in over 100 years dedicated to its collection of historic Japanese woodblock prints, 14 March to 15 November 2026.

A Small Grant will support travel from Japan for ASUNA and Rima Kato to present ASUNA’s Falling Sweets, an experimental, sound-led performance, at Sonica Glasgow, Cryptic’s 11-day biennial festival of audiovisual art and experimental music, September to October 2026.

A Small Grant will support transport of art for the exhibition, Hokusai: Thirty-six views of Mount Fuji from the Iuchi Collection, which presents, for the first time in the UK, the complete set of Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji by Katsushika Hokusai: Dulwich Picture Gallery, 20 October 2026 to 17 January 2027.

A Japan-side Small Grant is supporting Katie Paterson’s inclusion in Tokyo Atlas International Art Exhibition, 10 October to 20 December 2026. The exhibition also includes former Daiwa Foundation Art Prize winner, Haroon Mirza.

An Award is supporting Dr Ravindra Jayaratne, reader in coastal engineering at the University of East London’s School of Architecture, Computing and Engineering on a new research project in Japan that will advance understanding of how coastlines respond to storm waves and sediment movement. The 18-month project, which began in January 2026 will bring together researchers from the UK and Japan to investigate sediment transport in the swash zone – the highly dynamic area where waves meet the shoreline: UEL academic secures prestigious Daiwa award | University of East London

Support for travel to Leeds by Yasuhiro Chida, the first Japanese artist to exhibit at Light Night Leeds, to present ‘Afterreal’, a large-scale immersive light installation in Merrion Gardens (city centre), which is expected to reach up to 200,000 visitors, October 2026.

A Small Grant supported travel to Japan in May 2026 by academics undertaking exhibition-related research, ahead of a touring UK exhibition of Nintendo’s early history to coincide with the 40th anniversary of its character Mario. In part, the exhibition, Nintendo Before Mario, will be co-curated with game exhibition experts at Ritsumeikan Center for Game Studies. The exhibition, due to be displayed at Confetti College, Nottingham Trent and Bath Spa University, will showcase designer Gunpei Yokoi’s early work.

A Small Grant will support travel to the UK by Tokyo-based Kabuki artist Taichi Fujima who will teach a three-week workshop in London in July 2026, to develop a Kabuki-inspired production, Spring Snow, which will be performed at Wigmore Hall on 11 October 2026, marking the first theatrical creation ever presented in the venue’s 125-year history.

A Small Grant will support travel to Japan in spring 2026 by artist Steve Bishop to undertake on-site research at Towada Art Center and Towada City for the creation of new artworks in preparation for the solo exhibition ‘3 Films About Building’s (tentative title), for whose installation, opening and media engagements he will return in mid-November 2026.

A Small Grant was awarded to The British Museum to support the transport of loans from Japan that will be on display in their upcoming exhibition, Samurai, the first major exhibition to interrogate the idea of the ‘samurai’ as both historical figure and cultural construct, 3 February to 4 May 2026.

Support for travel to Japan in early 2020 by a team from B:Music to film a documentary about Nobuyuki Tsujii, a remarkable award-winning pianist, who has been blind from birth. The film was shown in Birmingham on 7 November 2022 prior to Tsujii’s concert. https://bmusic.co.uk/events/nobuyuki-tsujii

Support for the Japan strand (featuring Mieko Kawakami, Yayoi Kusama, Fuminori Nakamura and Chie Kutsuwada) at this year’s Cheltenham Literary Festival, 7 to 16 October 2022.

Support for a photography exhibition by Ishiuchi Miyako at Stills Edinburgh, 29 July to 8 October 2022.Support for travel to the UK by the Japanese artist Saeborg to premiere a performance at Submerge Festival (Manchester) and Fierce Festival (Birmingham) in March and October 2022; the first time these festivals have included representation from Japan.
Support for the Noriaki TSUCHIMOTO strand at the 2022 Open City Documentary Festival in London, 7 to 13 September 2022,’TSUCHIMOTO Noriaki: Film is a work of living beings’
https://opencitylondon.com/events/tsuchimoto-noriaki-film-is-a-work-of-living-beings/ Support for research travel by colleagues from the Royal Collection Trust in preparation for the exhibition, Japan: Courts and Culture (8 April 2022 to 12 March 2023) reviewed in The Guardian below: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/apr/07/art-of-diplomacy-300-years-japanese-art-royal-collection-queens-gallery
Support for a symposium (2023) in connection with the Royal Collection Trust’s exhibition, Japan: Courts and Culture, 8 April 2022 to 12 March 2023.
Support for the UK-Japan Winter School – including a workshop at Imperial College and a public lecture at the Embassy of Japan, 12 to 16 September 2022.
Support for travel by UK-based Shakespeare researchers from Birmingham University’s Shakespeare Institute to take part in a major interdisciplinary conference on Shakespeare and translation at Waseda University, September 2022.
Support of artwork and travel by one of the participating Japanese artists giving masterclasses at the 2022 International Festival of Glass, which has as its theme Contemporary Glass and Culture from the East, allowing visitors to sample regional food, design, and music, August 2022. A press release can be found here.
Support for travel to Japan by Second Hand Dance to perform We Touch, We Play, We Dance at the Ricca Ricca Festival in Okinawa for young audiences, and to tour to Fukuoka, Kyoto and Kawasaki, 21 July to 8 August 2022. You can see their performance dates and a taster of We Touch, We Play, We Dance via: https://secondhanddance.co.uk/upcoming-performance-dates/
Support for travel to Devon by Japanese ceramicists from Mashiko to take part in A Taste of Japan, an exhibition of contemporary Japanese tableware, a celebration of contemporary ceramicists while also reflecting on the 100 years of cultural exchange between the South West of the UK and Mashiko, 30 July to 17 September 2022.
Support for exhibition costs and travel to Belfast by collage artist Kensuke Koike to develop an exhibition of new photographic work to be displayed at the Botanic Gardens and Ulster Museum and to engage in talks at the Belfast Photo Festival, 3 to 30 June 2022.
Support for the transport of artwork by the Japanese manga artist Taiyō Matsumoto to feature in the exhibition Superheroes, Orphans and Origins: 125 years in Comics which will run at the Foundling Museum in London, 1 April to 28 August 2022.
Support for Scotland/Japan residencies with Cove Park, Arts Initiative Tokyo and Creative Residencies in Arita: support for travel by three Scottish and three Japanese artists undertaking residencies in each other’s countries, facilitating cultural exchange and the development of new work, 2019 to 2020.
Support for The Coronet Theatre’s Electric Japan season, 11 May 2022 to 18 June 2022.
Support for exhibition costs and travel to Belfast by collage artist Kensuke Koike to develop an exhibition of new photographic work to be displayed at the Botanic Gardens and Ulster Museum and to engage in talks, Belfast Photo Festival, 2 to 30 June 2022.
Support for the catalogue accompanying the Royal Academy of Arts’ exhibition Kyōsai: The Israel Goldman Collection which aims to provide a reassessment of his art in light of recent scholarship and widen appreciation of his oeuvre, 19 March 2022 until 19 June 2022. There is a review of the exhibition in The Guardian written by Jonathan Jones here.
Support for Tansa 探査 Japanese Threads of Influence at the Crafts Study Centre, Farnham, 4 January to 26 March 2022.
Support for the catalogue accompanying the British Museum’s exhibition Hokusai: The Great Picture Book of Everything, 30 September 2021 to 30 January 2022.
Support for the Kodo One Earth Tour 2022: Tsuzumi UK Tour, February 2022.
Support for the Ashmolean’s exhibition Tokyo: Art and Photography which explores Japan’s capital city through the varied art it has generated from the 1600s to the present, 29 July 2021 to 3 January 2022. A review by Jonathan Jones for The Guardian can be found here.

Support for an interdisciplinary arts research project linking Scotland and the Tohoku region of Japan, Confluence: Spirit of the North led by Gillian McFarland working with artists Su Grierson, Inge Panneels and Kyra Clegg on scoping cultural exchange with Japanese artist Yoshiko Maruyama, Tatsushi Takizawa, Tokio Maruyama and Mariko Asai, autumn and winter 2021.

Support for the installation of Phyllida Barlow’s art work for display in Another Energy: Power to Continue Challenging – 16 Women Artists from Around the World, a show of work by women artists who began their practice from the late 1950s to 1970s, Mori Art Museum, April 2021 to 16 January 2022. Features | Another Energy: Power to Continue Challenging – 16 Women Artists from around the World | Mori Art Museum

Support for the Japan 2021 cultural festival taking place in Oxford, October to December 2021.

Support for visits to Coventry by Naoki Sugawara and Tomoya Takeda from OiBokkeShi to develop a new co-production with Entelechy Arts – Theatre of Wandering focusing on dementia and wandering, to be performed in local streets and shops in Coventry in Autumn 2021. A film of Theatre of Wandering can be viewed here.

Support for the second edition of the Queer East Film Festival (Japan Focus) from 15 to 26 September 2021 in cinemas across London.

Support for travel to Japan by members of Fabula Collective to create a new UK-Japan dance piece Everything Would Be Nonsense as part of HUMAN., a choreographic triple bill inspired by UK literature, specifically Macbeth, Alice in Wonderland, and The Picture of Dorian Gray, premiering at The Pit, New National Theatre, Tokyo; and a strategic networking event with Q&A for Japanese industry colleagues, 28 to 29 August 2021.

Support for Meiro Koizumi, shortlisted (and winner along with the other 5 shortlisted artists) for the Artes Mundi biennial exhibition and prize to exhibit new work focussed on the representation of national histories, and memories of armed conflict, video installation and participatory work using VR headsets, National Museum Cardiff, 15 March to 5 September 2021. Meiro Koizumi’s video work can be seen here. You can listen to Meiro Koizumi in conversation about Angels of Testimony, showing at the National Museum Cardiff here: LISTEN: At the table with Meiro Koizumi – Artes Mundi

Support for Clare Farrow Studio in an immersive project by the Japanese architect Toshiki Hirano titled ‘Reinventing Texture’, incorporating design, music, and sound, which will feature in the London Design Biennale as the installation representing Japan under the theme of ‘Resonance’, at Somerset House, 1 to 27 June 2021. (A review can be read here.)

Neighbouring, a 4-day on-line workshop from 15 to18 June 2021 programmed as a part of Glasgow International 2021 brings together practitioners from Japan and Scotland to give voice to and partake in a shared desire for closeness and intimacy despite physical separation and barriers to engagement. With practices spanning photography, installation, performance and spoken word, artists Shizuka Yokomizo, Megan Lucille Boettcher, Mio Harada and Shoko Imai, Nile Koetting, Jessica Ramm, Hanna Tuulikki and Tomoko Konoike draw from lived experiences, claim agency within solitude, choreograph spaces, consider the summoning of community, and re-interpret mythological narratives.
Full programme here: https://www.thedrouth.org/

Support for Conductive Music in its dissemination amongst UK primary schools, via newsletters and social media, of lesson plans aimed at engaging a wide range of students in music, technology and video game design through Noh and Kabuki inspired storytelling, December 2020 to July 2021. During the February 2021 half-term (15 to 19 February) Conductive Music will be running a new storytelling, music, and coding event. More information: bit.ly/2X8JWQC

Support for travel to London by three Japanese artists: Fate, Imaone and Suiko – to participate in the London Mural Festival which will start in September 2020 with over 150 global artists heading to London to paint more than 40 large-scale walls across the capital alongside a plethora of smaller activities.

Support for travel to London by Japanese specialists from the Kyoto Costume Institute and Bunka Gakuen to work with the V&A in the lead-up to Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk a new exhibition focused on Japan’s most iconic garment. and running You can view tours of the exhibition led by curator Anna Jackson via YouTube here. The exhibition reopened on 27 August 2020 until 25 October 2020

Support for travel to Japan by Professor Michael Newman to research Japanese artists for the exhibition Drawing After Bellmer to be held at The Drawing Room in London. The exhibition will explore the influence of Hans Bellmer on modern and contemporary artists, including Japanese works by Fuyuko Matsui, Kumi Machida and Tabaimo, 9 September to 31 October 2021.

Support for travel to the UK by Japanese academics taking part in a conference on Twenty-First Century Perspectives on Kazuo Ishiguro: an international celebration at The Centre of Transnational and Transcultural Research at the University of Wolverhampton, Saturday 1 February 2020.

Collaborative Lesson Research: Support for travel to Japan in November 2019 by five mathematics experts learning about Lesson Study and Curriculum design at school level in Japan and a return visit by 2 Japanese educators to attend workshops and hold a dissemination seminar at Nottingham University in spring 2020.

Support for travel to the UK by four Noh actors taking part in the play Between The Stones at the Purcell Centre, Southbank as well as in associated Getting to Noh education and outreach activities, January 2020. More information as well as a video of the play can be viewed here: https://www.betweenthestones.com

Support for travel to Japan in November 2019 by ten Coventry pupil ambassadors (aged 8-10) to work with pupils at their partner school in Yokosuka on an art project which will result in a display at the pupil-led Japan Arts Festival in Coventry to celebrate Tokyo 2020: @HowesCoventry

Support for travel to Belfast by multidisciplinary artist Hiroaki Umeda and sound artist Asuna to hold performances and engage in free public discussions and debates about their work and practices as part of the Belfast International Arts Festival, October 2019.

Creative Dementia Practitioner Ellie Robinson-Carter launched “Pass the Baton!” – an international exchange with Takehito Tokuda, a member of the Dementia Friendship Club in Japan. Takehito Tokuda took part in an international conference in July 2019, at Falmouth University hosted by Robinson-Carter about the benefits of creative, intergenerational practice and Run Tomo, a relay running race involving people living with dementia and their carers in Japan. Robinson-Carter travel to Japan for two weeks in autumn 2019, visiting the Run Tomo communities of Fuiji city, Fujinomiya city and Machida cityto experience the project as a runner herself. More here.

Support for travel to Hiroshima by Peter Matthews to exhibit From the Atlantic Ocean, England, a solo exhibition of paintings and drawings made along the Atlantic coast of Cornwall, England created in the spring and summer of 2019. As well as a solo exhibition of paintings and drawings. Matthews held drawing workshops, artist talks and a daily blog, 20 September to 7 October 2019. Here you can view a film of the coasts of Iwate and Oregon.

Support for De La Warr Pavilion and Outlands – who organised residencies in Tokyo and Salford by British visual artists IMPATV and Japanese musicians Qujaku resulting in creative exchange and a joint tour of 10 UK venues, May to December 2019. More information via this blog.

Support for travel to Kyushu by two Essex University academics to meet with Japan-based scholars to collaborate in analysing the politics of Japanese peace education, activism and citizenship and its domestic and regional ramifications, and to take part in The Politics of War-Related Heritage in Contemporary Asia, Kyushu University, 5 and 6 September 2019

Support for travel to the UK by Noh theatre practitioners to perform a Japanese and British play – Atsumori and Emily – at Tara Arts Theatre in London, whilst also engaging in associated workshops in London and Liverpool, September 2019. At Tara Arts: Wednesday 4 to Friday 6 September 2019, 7:30pm. Emily can be watched on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gWJiKlNYGE

Support for travel to the UK by Japanese architect Kazuhiro Yajima to bring his architectural work ‘Umbrella Tea House’ to form a centrepiece for Compton Verney’s 2019 exhibition, Tea Journey – from the Mountains to the Table, 6 July to 22 September 2019.

Support for travel to the UK by manga artist, anime producer Harumo Sanazaki to participate in the conference Picturing Shakespeare: Shakespeare and the Visual Imagination and to show her work at exhibitions on the illustration of Shakespeare plays and an exploration of Shakespeare in designed objects, September 2019.

Support for THE鍵KEY: Daiwa Scholarship alumna, Francesca Le Lohé’s site-specific, dramatic musical work, inspired by Junichiro Tanizaki’s novel The Key (1956) will feature in Powell Tuck Associates’ event on 27 June as part of the London Festival of Architecture, and make its UK debut as part of the Tête à Tête Opera Festival on 2 and 3 August. Details here.

Support for travel to the UK by Japanese architect Junya Ishigami to build the 2019 Serpentine Pavilion, his first built structure in the UK, 21 June to 6 October 2019. Press Release here.

Travel by the artist Tanekuni Koyanagi whose exhibition of lacquer works, A Secret Beauty: The Spirit of Japanese Maki-e , will be his first solo show outside Japan and will involve study days and talks, Brunei Gallery, SOAS University of London, 11 July to 21 September 2019.

The Ayrshire Fiddle Orchestra’s two-week concert tour of Japan by a group of 70 young musicians aged 12-20 from all parts of Ayrshire to perform in Yokohama, Kyoto, Hiroshima and Tokyo, where a musical workshop & ceilidh will also be held, July 2019.

13 members of the Shakespeare Company Sendai will perform Ainu Othello while also showcasing Ainu dance, music and culture at Tara Theatre in London, 7 to 10 August 2019: https://www.tara-arts.com/whats-on/ainu-othello
You can read a review of Ainu Othello by Dr Sarah Olive here.

Support for travel to Sheffield by Masayuki Uemura and colleagues from Ritsumeikan Center for Games Studies to co-curate an exhibition, ButtonBashers centring on ‘Famicom’ game pads and to contribute to a series of events in support of the exhibition at the National Videogame Museum, running from 1 July to 28 September 2019.

Support for visits by academics taking part in conferences aimed at seeking new theoretical approaches to Japanese cinema at Birkbeck in collaboration with SOAS, University of London in May, at Waseda, Sugiyama & Ochanomizu Universities in July and August 2019. (https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/japanese-transnational-cinema-tickets-59050962017)

Contribution to a visit by three craftspeople from the Kanai Kougei workshop, Kagoshima, to take part in a short programme of educational lectures and workshops around the topic of dorozome (mud-dyeing), including at the Horniman Museum in London on 15 June 2019: Horniman event

Support for travel to Sheffield by four filmmakers from Japan to present their films as part of The Japan Focus strand at the Sheffield International Documentary Festival and to take part in Q&A sessions and talks, leading to new and strengthened partnerships, June 2019.

Support for travel to the UK by Japan-based academics taking part in the Nissan Institute’s two-day international conference to mark the 150th anniversary of the Meiji Restoration and to bring together new insights on its meaning for Japanese History, 10 and 11 May 2019: Nissan Seminar: Reopening the “Opening of Japan”: https://www.nissan.ox.ac.uk/event/nissan-seminar-reopening-the-opening-of-japan

Support for travel to Durham by four visiting scholars from Japan taking part in the interdisciplinary conference Modern Japan in the Comparative Imagination leading to enhanced links and towards developing a Centre for Interdisciplinary Japanese Studies, 9 & 10 May 2019.

Support for a UK-Japan symposium on autism research at Tokyo University in May 2019. The symposium was organised by Dr Atsushi Senju from the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development at Birkbeck University of London, and it involved presentations by academics and PhD students from Durham, Jichi Medical, Akechi, and Tokyo Universities as well as those by academics and students from Birkbeck University of London and University College London. A video summary of the symposium (fewer than 4 minutes) is available here.

Yinka Shonibare and team travelled to Fukuoka Art Museum to set up ‘Flower Power’, his first solo show in Japan, with associated talks, and to celebrate the museum’s grand opening after renovation; his bright wax-printed fabrics will complement the museum’s Asian textiles, March 2019.

Five artists from Stopgap Dance Company, which creates productions with disabled and non-disabled dancers to challenge negative perceptions of disability, travelled to Japan in March 2019 to deliver workshops and performances in preparation for the cultural programme surrounding the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games. An article in The Japan Times about Stopgap’s production of The Enormous Room can be found via this link.

Support for a two-week research trip to Japan in spring 2019 by curators from the Royal Collection Trust to prepare for a major exhibition to be held in London and Edinburgh scheduled for 2020 and an accompanying publication exploring the Royal Collection’s rich holdings of Japanese art. The Embassy of Japan has listed information about this project on their website here.

An 8-day visit by 30 members of the Oxford University Orchestra on a cultural exchange and outreach tour to Japan in association with Tokyo’s Orchestra MOTIF, and also to engage in outreach work with El Sistema Japan in Fukushima, March 2019.

A Small Grant supported Japanese participation at the first International Arts & Homelessness Summit/Festival in Manchester, themed around Practice, Policy and the Public, working towards the next summit, due to take place in Tokyo during the Cultural Olympiad, November 2018.

Adopt a Potter used a grant to fund students and staff from Clay College Stoke to travel to Mashiko in September 2018, where they learned about Japanese ceramics techniques through workshops and meeting potters. Click here for the blog.

In September 2018 Dr Bonnie Kemske was awarded a Small Grant to support travel to Japan in spring 2019 to interview practitioners and teachers about kintsugi, engage in critical analyses of specific artworks at museums and open an East/West dialogue on the role and aesthetics of this artistic technique, resulting in two books and lecture tours. On 26 February 2021 she gave a talk about her book Kintsugi: The Poetic Mend for the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation. Information about the event here: Kintsugi – The Poetic Mend – Daiwa Foundation (dajf.org.uk

Cheltenham Literary Festival and its East Meets West Strand, 5 to 14 October 2018

Kizuna: Japan Wales Design at National Museum Cardiff, 16 June to 9 September 2018

Southampton and Tokyo Universities’ collaboration in Marine Robotics and Coral Mapping, August 2017 to April 2018.

Radical Craft, an exhibition focusing on craft made by artists outside of the mainstream, toured for 18 months at eight UK venues from March 2016 onwards.

UK-Japan visits by researchers at Manchester and Hokkaido Universities studying the evolution of birdsong during conservation in captivity, to help population managers protect the Java sparrow, a popular cage bird that is now endangered in the wild, February to August 2018. http://science.stmaur.ac.jp/news/129-university-of-manchester-researchers-present-their-work-to-ib-biologists

Animals & Us (featuring Shimabuku) at Turner Contemporary, Margate, 25 May to 30 June 2018.

The Shakuhachi Symposium at SOAS, University of London on 30 July and the World Shakuhachi Festival at Goldsmiths University of London, 1 to 4 August 2018.

Travel to the UK by photographer Fumio Nabata to exhibit his work documenting children with Down Syndrome across the world, at an exhibition entitled Positive Energy, at Gallery@Oxo, South Bank London, 16 to 21 May 2018.

In Praise of Shadows, the first joint exhibition hosted at a machiya in Kanazawa by Edinburgh artist, Alan Johnston, and Hakodate artist, Atsuo Fukuda, inspired by Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows, comprising artist talks and associated exhibitions throughout Japan, 12 May to 3 June 2018.

Photographer, Professor Karen Knorr’s exhibition, Once only, Only once is on at Daitoku-ji’s Obai-in temple as part of the Kyotographie exhibition until 11 May. The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation supported Karen’s research trip to Japan and exhibition, in association with Yuki Miyake (White Conduit Projects).

London Ear Festival of Contemporary Music, which will feature Japanese musicians in 2018, 21 to 25 March 2018.

Dr Anna Marmodoro, University of Oxford: an interdisciplinary 4-day workshop on the theme ‘Augustine’s De Ordine: philosophical, historical and theological perspectives’ bringing together classicists, philosophers & theologians, 26-29 March 2018.

A workshop was held at King’s College London on Japan’s Strategic Communications, involving Japan-based experts/academics, and focusing on government-led strategic communication, exploring the growing relevance of governmental communication in the international and domestic politics of Japan, 2 and 3 March 2018.

A rugby and cultural tour, including visits to local schools, by 25 high school students from Bath, to nurture deepening links between the partner cities, Bath and Beppu, and which are supported by the Mayor of Bath and Beppu City Council, February 2018. Here is an article about the tour, featured in the Bath Chronicle.

At the roots of visual Japan. Word-image dynamics in early-modern Japan – an international workshop on the origins of manga held at the University of Cambridge, 14-15 December 2017.

Foreign Graduate Employment in Japanese Companies – Implications for Japanese Studies Teaching & Research; conference at SOAS, University of London on 6 and 7 November 2017

Leaving Language In A Japanese Limousine, The Metropole Gallery Folkestone, 2 September to 22 October 2017 with Sachiko Abe, Noe Aoki anti cool, Tamaki Kawaguchi, Midori Mitamura, Hiromi Nakajima, Tatsumi Orimoto Mio Shirai and Kirico Tanikawa

Jiro Takamatsu: The Temperature of Sculpture at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, 13 July to 22 October 2017

Tears and Laughter: Women in Japanese Melodrama at the British Film Institute, London 16 October to 29 November 2017

Robot exhibition at the Science Museum: 8 February to 3 September 2017, this blockbuster exhibition will explore the 500-year story of humanoid robots and the artistic and scientific quest to understand what it means to be human – https://beta.sciencemuseum.org.uk/robots

Tate St Ives: That Continuous Thing: Artists and the Ceramics Studio, 1920 – Today; 31 March to 3 September 2017

Follow the Thread at Gallery Oldham, 27 May to 8 July 2017: In 1865 three students came from Japan to Oldham to learn about industrialised textile production. The following year engineers from Platt Brothers travelled from Oldham to Japan to set up the first textile factory in the country. This exhibition showcases Crompton Primary School’s project using local history to make links with another country.

Barbican – The Japanese House: Architecture and Life after 1945 – the first major UK exhibition to focus on Japanese domestic architecture from the end of the Second World War to now, a field which has consistently produced some of the most influential and extraordinary examples of modern and contemporary design, 23 March 2017 – 25 June 2017.

Tenkō in Trans-war Japan: Politics, Culture and History. An International and Interdisciplinary workshop at Leeds University (30 June to 2 July 2017) focused on the cultural and political trope of tenkō (ideological conversion), which refers to leftists in the 1930s, but whose broader meanings capture tensions at the heart of Japanese trans-war modernity: between the state’s technologies of subjectivation and individual agency; between the abstractions of Marxist theory (and the cold instrumentalism of Western knowledge in general) and native epistemological presence; between an impoverished present and the plenitude of national myth.

Documenting Westerners in Nineteenth-Century China & Japan: New Sources and Perspectives:The symposium, held at the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures in Norwich, examined the influence and contributions of Westerners in nineteenth-century East Asia, with a focus on how personal correspondences can serve as historical sources. The two-day gathering will explore two Nagasaki-based British merchants, William Alt and Frederick Ringer (a native of Norwich), as well as Charles Richardson, a Shanghai-based merchant killed near Yokohama in 1862, an event that led to an armed clash between Britain and the Satsuma domain the following year, 22 and 23 June 2017.

Goldsmiths, University of London’s London, Rio, Tokyo Olympics Symposium explored the changes accompanying the 2012 London Olympics, the 2016 Rio Olympics and the preparations for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, 8 to 10 June 2017. The full programme can be found here.

Artist Amanda Chambers participated in an Artist Residency Programme at The Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park, Shiga Prefecture and post-residency engagement outcomes with multiple collaborators, March 2017. In June she was recognised as 1 of “Five2Watch Sculpture“: https://www.axisweb.org/five2watch/2017/five2watch-sculpture-ii/

In February 2017 Professor Hans Stofer, Head of the Jewellery and Metal Programme at the Royal College of Art, visited Japan with Professor Michael Rowe in order to meet cast iron/tetsubin practitioners in Tokyo, Iwate and Kyoto and learn about the technique and its cultural relevance, for inclusion in presentations at academic conferences in the UK and taught as part of the RCA’s Jewellery & Metal Masters course, January 2017. https://www.rca.ac.uk/schools/school-of-material/material-research/tetsubin-project/

The City of London Sinfonia tour to Japan from 9 to 14 March 2017 included concerts in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Yokohama, a series of projects in Tokyo with young children in schools and hospitals and older adults in care homes, and the release of a recording of Japanese songs: https://cityoflondonsinfonia.wordpress.com/

NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo performed Takemitsu’s haunting Requiem for strings alongside Mahler’s passionately melancholic Sixth Symphony on 6 March 2017 at the Royal Festival Hall (https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/108790-nhk-symphony-orchestra-tokyo-paavo-jarvi-2017)

Flora Japonica in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery, Kew Gardens: exhibition showcasing Japan’s native flora as depicted by eminent Japanese botanical artists. The exhibition will hold the work of several distinguished artists including botanist Dr Tomitoro Makino. September 2016 to March 2017

Travel to the UK by two Japanese contemporary dancers to collaborate with Nottingham dance artists, local community, university students and a choreographer on a new creation based on the Iwate Shishi-odori Deer Dance as part of the Nottdance Festival, March 2017.

Noh time like the present ... – A tribute to Akira Matsui, 24-25 February 2017 at LSO St Luke’s from 7pm

Taiko Meantime’s UK November 2016 tour: http://www.rhythmworks.com/taikomeantime/

The first UK survey and major exhibition of Japanese new media artist Ryoichi Kurokawa at FACT, Liverpool, 10 March to 19 June 2016: http://www.fact.co.uk/projects/ryoichi-kurokawa-unfold.aspx?Ref=FACTeNewsletter&dm_i=2XU,415EP,MD5PIY,EKVQP,1#grid-tab2

Fishguard Arts Society held an exhibition by Artists from Kyoto in Pembrokeshire, September 2016: http://www.fishguardartssociety.org.uk/AKIN.html

Koki Tanaka’s exhibition at the Liverpool Biennial ran from 9 July – 16 October 2016.

London International Festival of Theatre’s (LIFT) production of Miss Revolutionary Idol Berserker at the Barbican Centre, 22 June to 2 July 2016: http://www.barbican.org.uk/theatre/event-detail.asp?ID=18774

Noh Reimagined – The contemporary art of classical Japanese theatre at King’s Place on 13 and 14 May 2016: http://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/curated-weeks/noh-reimagined-the-contemporary-art-of-classical-japanese-theatre#.VthgnGfcvcs

A residency in Birmingham by Shun Ito, whose installation of kinetic sculptures, ‘Cells’ and associated talks and workshops were an integral part of the biennial International Dance Festival Birmingham (IDFB), 3-21 May 2016: http://visitbirmingham.com/what-to-do/festivals-events/art-photography-culture/international-dance-festival-birmingham-2016/

Koki Tanaka’s exhibitions in the UK. The exhibition at The Showroom in London opened on 28 April 2016 and ran until 18 June 2016; the exhibition at the Liverpool Biennial will run from 9 July – 16 October 2016.

Support for one Junior and one Senior Japanese competitor at this year’s Menuhin Competition in London, April 2016: http://menuhincompetition.org

Travel to the UK by Tsuyoshi Anzai, winner of the Royal British Society of Sculptors (RBS) Bursary Award, whose work was exhibited in London from 17 March to 20 May 2016. http://rbs.org.uk/exhibitions/rbs-bursary-awards-2015-group-exhibition

Travel by Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (YCAM) colleagues to the Watershed in Bristol to hold a two-day workshop for dancers, choreographers and coders to develop new choreography techniques using technology developed in Japan, which can deal with live motion data and interactive visualisation of movement, February 2016: http://www.watershed.co.uk/pmstudio/events/fri-12022016-100pm

Japan Now, a day of talks on Japanese culture, literature and modernity at the British Library on Saturday, 27 February 2016.

The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation supported a visit to the UK by Misato Tomita to Guest Conduct with the English National Ballet Philharmonic for their autumn 2015 season, September to December 2015. You can see an interview with her via this link.

Ei Wada staged a first UK solo exhibition which formed the main focus of NEoN’s 2015 digital arts festival, exhibiting three new video installation works and participating in artist talks, 8-14 November 2015 in Dundee.

Izaku Taiko Odori (Prefectural Cultural Asset) from Kagoshima performed at Japan Matsuri in London (Saturday, 19 September), as well as in Oxford in order to raise awareness that 2015 is the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the Satsuma Students in the UK.

Archaeologist, Yumiko Nakanishi-Seino is conducting research into British ships wrecked off Okinawa in the late 19th century. She gave a talk at the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation on 29 September 2015: British Shipwrecks: Underwater Archaeology in Okinawa.

Lafcadio Hearn: Exhibition and Symposium – at Teikyo University of Japan in Durham / Ushaw College in September 2015.

The World of Girls’ Comics, an exhibition which formed part of the The Lakes International Comic Art Festival in Kendal, Cumbria, 16-18 October 2015

Alternative Photography Scotland held the Actinic Festival, 26 June to 26 July 2015. This included an exhibition of work by Takashi Arai at Stills Gallery, Edinburgh from 12 to 31 July 2015.

Ikon Gallery in Birmingham held an exhibition of work by Takehisa Kosugi, 22 July to 27 September 2015. This was Kosugi’s first major solo exhibition in the UK. A pioneer of experimental music in Japan in the early 1960s, he is closely associated with the Fluxus movement and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Kosugi is one of the most influential artists of his generation.

FellSwoop Theatre performed Toshiki Okada’s Current Location in Brighton, Bristol and Edinburgh, May to June 2015.

Professor Jason Hall-Spencer visited Shimoda Marine Station in June 2015 to provide expert advice and collaborate on pioneering studies of ocean acidification and carbon dioxide seeps recently discovered off Shikine Island, using techniques developed at European volcanic vents.

A Study of Modern Japanese Sculpture, an exhibition of Taisho and early Showa (1912-41) works ran at the Henry Moore Institute from 28 January to 19 April 2015 and then at Musashino Art University, 26 May to 16 August 2015.

A Small Grant was awarded to academics from Queen’s University Belfast collaborating with the National Institute of Polar Research in Tokyo, to unravel the ecology of an understudied, globally distributed predator, the ocean sunfish. For updates on the project and more information on the ocean sunfish, you can follow @SunfishResearch or catch the regular blog updates at sunfishresearch.wordpress.com.

Dr Alexander Weiss, Senior Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, has recently written below about his collaborative research into chimpanzees. He was awarded a Daiwa Foundation Small Grant in 2007. HIs article can be read here.

King’s College London, NIHR King’s Patient Safety and Service Quality Research Centre UK-Japan Project, March 2011 onwards

HeadSpace’s Artistic Residencies in Japan

The British Association of Japanese Studies’ ‘Discover Japanese Studies’ website for those interested in pursuing Japanese Studies at universit