Life, landscape and material culture in Fukushima changed forever following the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster that struck the region in 2011. More recently the pandemic has also had a great impact on artistic traditions and practices which were already under threat or almost lost.

In this lecture, visual artist and researcher Eleanor Burkett will pay tribute to this area’s traditional craft practice offering a rare glimpse into a textile collection, archive photographs and handmade paper from Fukushima and how they construct narratives and history of this region. The lecture is based on a recent exhibition entitled Fukushima Narratives at the Appleby Gallery, Romford, where Eleanor’s artwork was shown alongside early 20th century textiles from the collection of her former weaving teacher, Harue Yoshida, and archive photographs and handmade paper by Koichi Anzai, 6th generation papermaker of Kamikawasaki, Fukushima.

Eleanor Burkett is a visual artist, living and working in East London. Her life-long passion for paper and Japanese textiles began in the 1980s when as a textile graduate from Goldsmiths College, University of London, she lived in Fukushima and Tokyo. Over the past four years Eleanor has been exhibiting work and undertaking independent research on Japanese papermaking and paper textiles with key practitioners in Fukushima, Japan.

If you have any questions, please call the Japan Society office on 020 3075 1996 or email events@japansociety.org.uk.

Booking Info

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