Third Thursday Lecture:The Camera and the Emperor

In this talk, Gyewon Kim addresses how photography played a central role in the production and consumption of images featuring specific locations in Japan. Moreover, the talk examines the use of photography to capture Meiji Emperor during his local inspection tours made between 1872 and 1886. While her talk explores earlier instances when photography was used at imperial events, it also questions the importance and impact these earlier period photography had on images produced after 1930s when various commemorative events to celebrate the Emperor's sacred tours became popular throughout the country.

Gyewon Kim specializes in modern and contemporary art of Japan and Korea. She completed her PhD in Art History in 2010 from McGill University, on the topic of the mutual formations of photography and historic sites in late nineteenth-century Japan. Her work centers on vision, media and the politics of knowledge and representation in modern Japan and Korea. At the Sainsbury Institute, she is working on her book manuscript, Registering the Real: Photography and Historic Sites in Late Nineteenth Century Japan.