Art, Performance & Activism in Contemporary Japan

Art, Performance & Activism features the work of artists/activists based in Japan who push the boundaries of where art, performance and activism intersect. Presenting visually powerful and pioneering works from the mid-1990s to the present the exhibition explores differing strategies of intervention that seek to engage in contemporary debates and to change how we think and act.

Engaging with contemporary themes of art and action, private and public, memory and identity, the exhibition is the first to present their work in the UK and to provide a context for their interventions. Works include Teiji Furuhashi’s mesmerising solo production, The Lovers (Dying Pictures, Loving Pictures) and S/N performance by the Kyoto-based art collective DumbType, the print-based activist work of Yoshiko Shimada, and the visceral performance-based film work of emergent artists Soni Kum and Chikako Yamashiro. Provocative, beautiful, haunting, disturbing…moving.

Curated by Professor Fran Lloyd of Kingston University, London and Professor Rebecca Jennison of Kyoto Seika University, Japan.