Tag Archives: Japan

Then & Now by Australian filmmaker Paul Johanessen, is the short film that introduced us to the situation in Ishinomaki. The stories shared by the people featured were the inspiration for our fund-raising efforts. The film is a semi-finalist in the …

A little like Aladdin’s cave, dark and full of golden and silver treasures, might be one way of describing Maio Motoko’s attic storage of antique fabrics. Shelves and shelves, boxes and boxes of these textile gems provide a creative source …

Urakasumi aged Sake was my favourite Sake at the recent sake tasting event hosted by the Japanese government at Crown Casino. At that event, I was lucky enough to meet and talk with Sake Samurai Irie Keisuke about the Urakasumi brewery. Brewers …

Cherry blossoms are not the only signs of new life in Ishinomaki. The formidable strength of the human spirit is evident in small corners of Ishinomaki as residents struggle to restore some sense of hope for the future. Camouflaged by …

The streets of Ishinomaki are clear, their pavements shovelled clean of mud and debris by locals and volunteers. Fronting these pavements are faceless buildings in various stages of devastation, boarded up and forlorn. There are no people. There are no …

A highlight of our recent trip to Japan, April 27 saw us at the opening of a stunning and stimulating exhibition of contemporary ‘craft’ (工芸 kogei) at the internationally renowned 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan.  Entitled ‘Art …

The members of Japan’s traditional studio system are often not acknowledged. Historical records do not name the many individual artists involved in the creation of some of Japan’s most renowned artworks: The Hatsune Set of the Tokugawa for example, is …

Gora Kadan ‘The premier Hot Spring Ryokan in Hakone, Japan’ A recent confession to a long-standing Japanese friend that I had never, in over 25 years of frequent visits and extended stays in Japan, been to Hakone, provided the ideal …

Irises and Eight Bridges: Masterpieces by Kōrin from the Nezu Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art Nezu Art Musuem Tokyo April 21 – May 20 2012 After nearly a century apart, Ogata Korin’s (1658-1716) two master works of screen …

There is a line, snaking around the block as far as the eye can see, of people of all ages, backgrounds and types – bartenders, low-level yakuza, manual laborers… me…all eagerly queuing to shuffle in single file at a painstakingly …