Bereaved families of Japanese war dead in the Marshall Islands, Photo by Greg Dvorak
In this public lecture, Dr. Greg Dvorak (Professor, Waseda University) will discuss Japan’s largely unaddressed colonial/military legacies in Oceania (particularly Micronesia), while revisiting earlier research he conducted on the current status of First Nations communities in the Japanese archipelago.
The entanglement of the “ghost” of Japanese empire and the ongoing hegemony of American empire serves as a barrier to connection between multiple colonized and militarized communities around the Asia Pacific region, but there is a slowly growing network of ideas and transoceanic collaborative resistance around climate change activism, nuclear issues, demilitarization, and decolonization that has been emerging in recent years. Proposing new directions for the forthcoming post-COVID future, and in conversation with the trans-regional shared concerns, he will discuss Pacific Islands contemporary histories while sharing some observations from his recent work in Northern Oceania, Okinawa, and Ainu Mosir.
About the Talk
Time/Date:2021.7.3 SAT 18:30→20:00Admission:Free (Booking required)
Capacity:500
*We will hold the Global Art Talk online this time to take preventive measures against the proliferation of COVID-19. Please kindly understand that we still have possibility to cancel this event depending on the circumstances.
*English>Japanese consecutive translation available.
Organized by:Kyoto University of the Arts, Graduate School of Art and Design Studies/HAPS
About the Speaker
Greg Dvorak is professor of Pacific and Asian cultural studies in the Waseda University Graduate School of Culture and Communication Studies and undergraduate School of International Liberal Studies. Having spent his life between the Marshall Islands, the United States, and Japan, he teaches and researches mainly on themes of postcolonial memory, gender, militarism, resistance and art in the Oceania region, particularly where Japanese and American empires intersect in Micronesia. Founder of the grassroots art/academic network Project Sango, he serves as a co-curator for art from Northern Oceania in the upcoming 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Art, and has helped to advise other exhibitions such as the inaugural Honolulu Biennial. Among other publications, he is the author of Coral and Concrete: Remembering Kwajalein Atoll between Japan, America, and the Marshall Islands (University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2018).Booking&Inquiries
For Booking:Global Art Talk 028 Booking Form
For Inquires:
GLOBAL_ARTTALK@office.kyoto-art.ac.jp
GLOBAL ART TALK by KUA x HAPS
Connecting Kyoto and the World through Contemporary ArtThe environment surrounding contemporary art has become vastly more complex over the past few decades. Faced with this situation, it is no easy task for artists to find a way to be active at a global level. Naturally, it is virtually impossible to get a firm grasp on the art scenes that are being produced concurrently all over the world. In particular, in neighboring Asian countries that are seeing rapid economic growth and modernization, there are more opportunities than ever before to show one’s work, taking into account the new art museums and art fairs that are being established, and the flourishing numbers of international exhibitions. Although global attention focused on this region has increased, the situation is quite different in Japan, where there is a general sense that the work of developing art-related institutions has been finished. However, it is precisely this state of affairs that has led to a renewed questioning of how global networks are constructed, a reconsideration of how institutionalization works, and the role of artists in society.
In Kyoto, art schools produce a large number of new artists each year. But what kinds of connections might one discover today between this center of traditional Japanese culture and the world of contemporary art that has grown ever more complex in this way? “Global Art Talk,” presented by HAPS and Kyoto University of the Arts, is a program where internationally active artists, curators, collectors, researchers, and gallerists, among others, are invited, and, through a series of dialogues, strives to provide a global perspective as well as deepen understanding.
The “GLOBAL ART TALK” is part of the Curatorial Research Program of the HAPS, which seeks to provide support to young emerging artists.
The Kyoto University of the Arts is dedicated to establishing an institution that will foster artists from Kyoto who aim to work in the contemporary art world at a global level.
Images
Liberation Day parade float in Guåhan (Guam), Photo by Greg Dvorak
Artist Kathy Jetnī l-Kijiner, stands on top of the Runit Dome in Enewetak Atoll, during the making of her work Anointed, Photo by Dan Lin