Dr Yuko Kikuchi
TrAIN Member - Reader
I was born in Tokyo and educated in Japan, the USA and UK. After completing a BA in English and American literature and an MA in American Studies, I worked at the School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield, and during this period I began my research in craft and design history. A fascination with the local history of Sheffield, and its connection with John Ruskin and the English Arts & Crafts movement, gave rise to my interest in Ruskin’s influence in Japan. Ruskin in Japan 1890-1940: Nature for Art, Art for Life (1997) was my first major joint project, for which I curated an exhibition and produced a publication.
My PhD was a cross-cultural critique of the Japanese folkcrafts (Mingei) movement, and was subsequently published as Japanese Modernisation and Mingei Theory: Cultural Nationalism and Oriental Orientalism (2004).
Since 2000, I have been leading a project on Taiwanese visual culture during Japanese colonisation. My interests focus on the representation of cultures within East Asia, modernities and cultural identities in the colonial context. With major funding from the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation and the Taiwanese government, I organised a conference at the National Museum of History in Taipei, and an edited book, Refracted Modernity: Visual Culture and Identity in Colonial Taiwan (2007) was published. I am currently leading a new international project ‘Oriental’ Modernity: A Comparative Study of Modern Design in East Asia’. In relation to my most recent research on the American designer Russel Wright’s intervention in Asia, I am also leading AHRC funded ‘Forgotten Japonisme’ project jointly with Professor Toshio Watanabe.
Links
- Research Staff Profile : Camberwell College of Arts
Related Projects
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Refracted Modernity
Refracted Modernity: Visual Culture and Identity in Colonial Taiwan has developed from the international conference ‘Refracted Colonial Modernity in the Art and Design of Taiwan’ (2001: National Museum of History, Taipei). Led by Dr Yuko Kikuchi, TrAIN Senior Research Fellow, the project includes a further eight national and international participants:
Professor Chao-ching [Chaoqing] Fu (National Cheng Kung University), Dr Chia-yu Hu (National Taiwan University), Dr Kaoru Kojima (Jissen Women’s University), Ming-chu [Mingzhu] Lai (Chung-yuan University), Dr Hsin-tien Liao (Taiwan National University of Arts), Dr Naoko Shimazu (Birkbeck College, University of London), Professor Toshio Watanabe (TrAIN), Dr Chuan-ying Yen (Academia Sinica)
The Study of Taiwanese art as an independent disciplinary entity that is separate from Chinese art is a recent phenomenon.
Find out more about Refracted Modernity -
Nation, Identity and Modernity
Nation, Identity and Modernity, Visual Culture of India, Japan and Mexico, 1860s-1940 was funded by the AHRC (then AHRB) between 2001 and 2004. A collaboration between The University of Sussex and the University of the Arts London, this major research project was led by Professors Partha Mitter, Oriana Baddeley and Toshio Watanabe.
Find out more about Nation, Identity and Modernity -
Forgotten Japonisme
Led by TrAIN Director Professor Toshio Watanabe, Forgotten Japonisme was a major three year research project funded by the AHRC. Between October 2007 and October 2010, this project explored a previously neglected period in the study of Western attitudes towards Japanese art: from the 1920s to the 1950s.
Find out more about Forgotten Japonisme
Related Events
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Refracted Modernity
Tuesday 20 Nov, 2007,
17:15 to 19:00
Lecture Theatre, Chelsea College of Art & Design -
Dr Noriko Onohara
Wednesday 19 May, 2010,
17:15 to 19:00
Lecture Theatre Chelsea College of Art and Design -
Forgotten Japonisme The Taste for Japanese Art in Britain and the USA 1920s-1950s
Friday 09 Jul, 2010,
10:00 to 17:15
Saturday 10 Jul, 2010,
10:00 to 17:15
International conference at the Sackler Centre, V&A Museum, London. -
TrAIN Open Lecture - Examining Forgotten Japonisme: Process and outcome of a three-year research project’
Wednesday 06 Oct, 2010,
17:15 to 19:00
Lecture Theatre, Chelsea College of Art and Design (Atterbury Street entrance) -
CCW DESIGN LECTURE SERIES in collaboration with TrAIN Research Centre: Dr Yuko Kikuchi ‘Toward a Transnational Framework for Design History: American design intervention in Japan during the Occupation and Cold War’
Monday 07 Feb, 2011,
18:00 to 19:30
Lecture Theatre - Chelsea College of Art and Design, SW1P 4JU (Atterbury Street entrance) -
CCW DESIGN LECTURE SERIES in collaboration with TrAIN Research Centre: Carol Tulloch
Monday 07 Mar, 2011,
18:00 to 19:30
Lecture Theatre - Chelsea College of Art and Design, SW1P 4JU (Atterbury Street entrance) -
CCW DESIGN LECTURE SERIES in collaboration with TrAIN Research Centre: Tomoko Azumi (Designer, t.n.a. design studio)
Monday 21 Mar, 2011,
18:00 to 19:30
Lecture Theatre - Chelsea College of Art and Design, SW1P 4JU (Atterbury Street entrance) -
CCW DESIGN LECTURE SERIES in collaboration with TrAIN Research Centre: Saif Osmani (Spatial designer/artist/architecture curator)
Monday 28 Mar, 2011,
18:00 to 19:30
Lecture Theatre - Chelsea College of Art and Design, SW1P 4JU (Atterbury Street entrance)
Related People
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Anna Basham
Completed PhD - From Victorian to Modernist: the changing perceptions of Japanese architecture encapsulated in Wells Coates’ Japonisme
This thesis chronicles the change in perception of Japanese architecture from the Victorian era, where it was little recognised, to its becoming an inspiration for inter-war modernist architecture and lifestyle; it aims to record how Japanese art, particularly the way in which it was displayed, underwent a similar renaissance, and the part played by architect-engineer, Wells Coates, in this reversal of opinion.
Japanese ‘influence’ on British design from the mid-1850s until the development of Art Nouveau is generally accepted, but during the inter-war period inspiration from Japan is less readily acknowledged.
Find out more about Anna Basham -
Piotr Splawski
Current PhD - AHRC Studentship for the project Forgotten Japonisme
I was born and grew up in Poland. In 1994, I moved to London, which has been my home ever since.
Find out more about Piotr Splawski -
Helena Capkova
Current PhD - Interpreting Japan : Central European Architecture and Design 1920 – 1940
Central Europe has historically been an area with rich cultural networks and significant centres such as Prague, Berlin or Vienna. These centres were cultural melting pots with multilingual and multicultural environments accommodating a mixture of nationalities.
Find out more about Helena Capkova -
Voon Pow Bartlett
Completed PhD - The relational and quotidian in contemporary urban China
My research addresses the work of contemporary Chinese artists based in Beijing, whose work is both formed in negotiation with a global audience and influenced by a historically and culturally specific form of urban development. The tide of economic progress in China has a direct impact on daily life and continues to fuel the art world, raising issues of authenticity, authority and ownership.
Find out more about Voon Pow Bartlett