2024 marks the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures. To celebrate, we will be hosting an exhibition in the Atrium of The Forum 20-25 May 2024 exploring two of our major current projects.

Nara to Norwich: Arts and Beliefs at the Ends of the Silk Roads, 500-1000 AD explores the Silk Roads beyond their current limits of the Chinese and post-Roman worlds. As well as an exhibition, we are working in collaboration with the medieval Buddhist temple of Hasedera in Japan to bring to the UK a replica of their 16m scroll image of Kannon Bosatsu, the bodhisattva of compassion and mercy, to display in full in The Forum. This will be accompanied by a series of performances and events which we will announce more details of in due course.

The Later Prehistoric Norfolk Project has undertaken two excavations in Norfolk at Arminghall Henge (2022) and Warham Camp (2023). Working in collaboration with Cambridge Archaeological Unit and The Restoration Trust, an organisation that uses heritage projects to help people living with mental health challenges, this display will explore the significant finds of the excavations and how archaeology and heritage might be used to improve wellbeing.

We will be announcing full details of the programme and exhibition over the coming weeks.