Paper short abstract:

By investigating how Japan was represented in philanthropic events in late Victorian Britain, this paper illuminates the ways in which professional decorators played crucial roles as mediators between transnational trends such as the “Western” fascination with Japan, and urban and rural communities.

Paper long abstract:

Beyond international expositions and musical operettas such as The Mikado (1885) or The Geisha (1896), the other type of Japan-themed public event in which Victorian people experienced a transcultural encounter with Japan was the charity bazaar. Becoming popular in Britain in the early nineteenth century, the charity bazaar was a temporary, fundraising event which relied on voluntary work in both organising stalls and supplying each of them with the objects to put on sale.

To attract visitors and supporters, some charity bazaars began to be fitted up as a Japanese “traditional” village, shedding light on a multifaceted cultural phenomenon. Being the period in which the British fascination with Japanese culture was reaching its peak, the popularity of the stereotyped image of Japan was instrumental in transforming the “Orientalist” theme of Japanese Village into an appropriate setting to promote even local endeavours such as charity campaigns which were completely unrelated to Japan, its culture, and people.

Drawing upon newspaper articles and archive material, this paper will illuminate the interior design aspect of these fundraising events, as well as the relationship between the late-nineteenth century enthusiasm for Japan stirred by world’s fairs (London 1862, Paris 1867, Vienna 1873) and the stereotyped representation of Japan in public charity initiatives organised in bustling cities, peripheral towns, and rural villages. Various companies of decorators worked throughout Britain arranging charity bazaars set up to resemble a traditional Japanese village, the designs of which were similar and profoundly indebted to the Japanese Village erected in 1875 at Alexandra Park in London by Christopher Dresser, who created it after purchasing the structures of the Japanese garden arranged at the International Exposition held in Vienna in 1873.

Finally, this paper aims to enlighten the means by which the idealised image of Japan reached high and popular culture in most parts of Britain – urban and rural areas alike – emphasising a clear link between events of global magnitude such as world’s fairs and localised fundraising initiatives such as charity bazaars, which altogether have stirred the enthusiasm for “everything Japanese,” shaping the global perception of Japan up to this day.

Paper short abstract:

A five-year court case between Nagoya artists and the prefectural museum regarding trash art changes the city's arts landscape forever. This study analyzes how trash dominated the city's cultural discourse during the trial, leading to anarchist trash performances and a rumored artist blacklist.

Paper long abstract:

Nagoya's infamous gomi saiban - the 1970-1975 "trash trial" between NAG (New Artist Group) and the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art over the exhibition of trash art (gomi sakuhin) - had major repercussions that changed Nagoya's arts scene forever. The museum's removal of the trash sculptures sparked protests and prompted NAG to launch a censorship case against the museum. Local artists now shut out of exhibition spaces took to the streets with trash artworks in solidarity with the plaintiffs. The gomi saiban would pit area artists against local art institutions with the city of Nagoya as their arena throughout the trial's five year duration and beyond. The subsequent news coverage, public art performances and installations termed "happenings" (happuningu) ushered in a post-1970 regional movement in Nagoya dubbed the "trash dimension" (gomi jigen), where trash became the city's anarchist artistic signature.

This study introduces a little-known yet locally significant event in Japanese postwar art history for the first time in the Anglophone world. Although trash art was globally resonant in contemporary art at the time (Tomii, 2018), trash art resonated with Nagoya artists even before the gomi saiban incident but subsequently created a contentious rift between artists and conservative institutions. This study attempts to better understand how the gomi saiban politicized trash art in Nagoya via public reception and newspaper discourse, specifically the reception of the trash sculptures through news headlines such as "Is it trash? Or, is it art?". Due to their dynamic nature as a transformative object in a contested space, the trash sculptures themselves are framed as both a catalyst and agentic third party in the legal dispute via "thing power". (Bennett, 2004) This study finds that the artists' legal action against the museum and the result may have ultimately led to Nagoya, once a contemporary art hub now dubbed "Japan's most boring city", being absent from historical accounts on contemporary Japanese art.