This one-day symposium at the V&A will celebrate the vibrant creativity of contemporary artists breaking gender barriers and crossing boundaries in crafts. In Japan, ‘craft’ is of foremost importance to the nation, unlike the often marginalised state of ‘crafts’ that is debated in contemporary Euramerica. Since 1955, Japan’s institutions and its national ‘tradition’ have been centred on the internationally celebrated system of Living National Treasures. This government funded system has succeeded in promoting Japanese crafts globally while shaping collections of ‘Japanese crafts’ within Japan’s institutions and beyond - yet from its inception it has remained male-dominated. While acknowledging the significance of those practitioners, this symposium takes a different focus, particularly foregrounding women artists and makers who are working outside such institutions, and thus responds to changes arising through contemporary debate and activism to present a more expansive consideration of ‘crafts’.

Firstly, this symposium focusing on women artists who work independently of institutions, in both global and local contexts. They are bringing refreshingly new ideas and forms of expression to their creative work, and challenge the traditional boundaries of crafts through their subjective approaches to body, decoration, and materiality that closely engage with their way of everyday life. Secondly, it will focus on artists who take inspiration from subcultures including anime and manga as their living culture in urban consumer society, as well as global ‘fine art’ practices. They are challenging the boundaries that were adopted by Japan during the late　19th century under the pressure of Euroamerican imperial power, and the subsequent legacy of the western hierarchy and institutionalisation of ‘fine art’ and ‘crafts’.

The symposium will feature presentations from artists, curators and academics, to foster an intersectional debate on the location of crafts from the perspectives of gender, boundary, regional culture value and contemporary visual culture. Therefore, this symposium has a dual aim: to discuss postcolonial Japan’s ‘crafts’ situation, positioned in terms of local history, and to address the contemporary Euroamerican debate on the postmodern location of ‘crafts’. These issues are often separated by area studies and contemporary visual culture debate, but they are in fact entangled. Through decolonial approaches we aim to disentangle the various threads to reveal that they are in fact two sides of the same coin. Keynote speaker Glenn Adamson and moderator Tanya Harrod will lead the academic debate, while other guest speakers will represent global practitioners and promoters of crafts. As such, the symposium will speak to audiences who are interested in the contemporary question and location of ‘crafts’ as well as Japan’s regionally specific issues of ‘crafts’.

This symposium is organised by the V&A and NPO Syuto Kanazawa, and funded by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan | Japan Arts Council | VARI (V&A Research Institute)