Japan, East Asia, Asia: Cultural spheres in conversation

Join a discussion with art historian Maki Fukuoka (University of Leeds), and curator Pauline J Yao (M+, Hong Kong and Leverhulme Visiting Professor, University of Leeds) about contemporary art in Japan and Japan’s relationship with its regional neighbours. How are these cultural spheres seen to be interconnected or disconnected? Do these connections matter?

This open conversation looks to explore the understanding of Japanese art beyond the frame of Japan and is part of a series of public forums “What Difference Does East Asia Make?” funded by the Leverhulme Trust. More details about the forum and related projects can be found at www.engenderingeastasia.org

About the Speaker

Pauline J. Yao is Lead Curator, Visual Art at M+, the new museum for twentieth and twenty-first century visual culture being built in Hong Kong. She has held curatorial positions at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and worked as an independent curator and writer in Beijing for six years, during which time she helped co-found the storefront art space Arrow Factory. A co-curator of the 2009 Shenzhen Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, Yao is a regular contributor to Artforum, e-flux Journal, and Yishu Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art and her writings on contemporary Asian art have appeared in numerous catalogues, online publications and edited volumes. She is the author of In Production Mode: Contemporary Art in China (Timezone 8 Books, 2008) and co-editor of 3 Years: Arrow Factory (Sternberg Press, 2011).

Maki Fukuoka is a Lecturer at the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, specialising in histories of photography and visual culture. Her book, The Premise of Fidelity: Science, Visuality, and Representing the Real in Nineteenth-century Japan was published by Stanford University Press in 2012. Her interest in visual histories and materials of Japan and broader Asia is informed by the studies of visual culture, histories of seeing, and of concepts.