EVENT: The Regime and the Scene. Or, What Difference Did the Tokugawa Shogunate Make to the Visual World of Early Modern Japan?

“Visual World” is spongy shorthand for the physical, representational, and conceptual space of the Edo period. It can conjure the imagery of painting, prints, cartography and other texts. It can conjure urban planning and cityscapes, architecture and infrastructure, and the “look” of the built landscape (from the scale of construction to the universe of night). It can conjure interiors and clothing.

Speakers:

Mary Elizabeth Berry, Department of History, UCB
Julie Nelson Davis, Department of the History of Art, University of Pennsylvania
Matthew McKelway, Department of Art History, Columbia University
Timon Screech, Department of the History of Art, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Kären Wigen, Department of HIstory, Stanford University
Marcia Yonemoto, Department of HIstory, University of Colorado
Mary Elizabeth Berry, Department of History, UCB
Julie Nelson Davis, Department of the History of Art, University of Pennsylvania
Matthew McKelway, Department of Art History, Columbia University
Timon Screech, Department of the History of Art, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Kären Wigen, Department of HIstory, Stanford University
Marcia Yonemoto, Department of HIstory, University of Colorado

Friday, October 28, 2016
9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Women's Faculty Club Lounge
University of California, Berkeley
url: http://tokugawavisualworld2016.weebly.com/

​

"Poll shows most disabled people in Japan dislike 'inspirational' documentaries about disability"

From Japan Today, 9/13/16.

When I still lived in the U.S., I remember a time I was watching a program on the Public Broadcasting Service featuring a group of middle school-aged kids working to design a fin or flipper to fit one of the girls in the group that would best allow her to swim through water. The girl testing out the flipper designs in the pool happened to be in a wheelchair, unable to walk.

A Japanese friend who was watching the program with me remarked that you would likely never see a program on TV in Japan featuring a disabled person yet not focusing on the person’s disability. He stated he didn’t like the way television in Japan always portrayed people with disabilities, and wished they would feature them in programs like the one we were watching, where their disability wasn’t even mentioned.

At the time I thought it was an interesting observation, and as it turns out, it’s a sentiment shared by many others.

Recently, a program called “Bari-Bara” on Japanese broadcasting network NHK’s Educational TV revealed the results of a poll asking people what they thought of “inspirational programs featuring disabled people”.

The response of non-disabled people polled was split nearly down the middle, with 45 percent reporting that they enjoy such programs. Still, the greater half – with 55 percent – reported that they don’t like such inspirational programs. When asking people in the disabled community what they thought about such programs, 90 percent of those polled answered they don’t like them.

The program “Bari-Bara” touts itself as “Japan’s first variety show for disabled people”, and aims to create a “truly barrier-free society”. The title “Bari-Bara” actually stands for “barrier-free variety” (“bariaa-furii baraetii”), the term “barrier-free” meaning to be accessible, or free of barriers/impediments. The episode in question, which featured the polls regarding inspirational programs about the disabled community, also showed a talk by the late Australian comedian and disabled rights activist Stella Young in which she coined the term “inspiration porn”, referring to society’s habit of always turning disabled people into “inspirations” simply because they live with a disability.

On its own the episode relays an important and thought-provoking message, but this episode also happened to air on the last weekend of August, the same weekend that Nippon Television runs its annual 24-Hour Television telethon, a charity program whose aim is to “introduce existing conditions of social welfare in Japan as well as around the world and to present the need for assistance for disadvantaged people.”

According to their website, since the first campaign in 1978, the charity committee has raised 27,248,414,171 yen in donations as of 2008. However, the program is also infamous for showing the very “tears, please” documentaries and “inspiration porn” that “Bari-Bara” denounces. In fact, the whole “Bari-Bara” episode was a parodied mock-up of 24-Hour Television‘s program, with staff and crew wearing shirts in the same bright yellow color that 24-Hour Television uses, bearing a similar slogan and with the stage decorated in a similar fashion to that of the telethon event.

Considering the much-needed donations 24-Hour Television raises for a whole variety of charitable organizations, it’s highly unlikely that “Bari-Bara’s” intent was to completely undermine the telethon, but hopefully it has encouraged the committee as well as the program’s viewers to rethink the way they portray and view disabled people in society. And if the result of “Bari-Bara’s” poll is any indication, the tear-jerking documentaries aren’t even appealing to the majority of the population, so a new way of presenting the telethon could even be beneficial to its ultimate purpose.

Source: https://www.japantoday.com/category/lifestyle/view/poll-shows-most-disabled-people-in-japan-dislike-inspirational-documentaries-about-disability

See also the comments at the end of the story, including the following video suggestion:



Bari-Bara webpage: http://www6.nhk.or.jp/baribara/

Previous VAOJ coverage of this issue: http://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.jp/search?q=inspiration+porn

Japan Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's new photo website

Sample photo - "Fukushima Sazae-do Hall" 

(https://photo.kankouyohou.com/photo/7/?img=0)

Announcement from EASIANTH:

From the PHOTO METI PROJECT website:

PHOTO METI PROJECT is a platform to introduce various parts of Japan with beautiful representative images.

By collecting and showcasing images rich in nature and sceneries of high cultural context, we will introduce our country, Japan. Images on this site are presented based on Creative Commons; meaning that we promote secondary use. Starting from here, we hope more people will be interested in Japan and choose Japan as their next destination. By connecting with “Kankoyoho Platform”, which is a database of Japanese sightseeing information, we will introduce basic information and degree of congestion as well as information for foreign visitors for each area. We are working to welcome photo posts from you in the future which we believe will strengthen PHOTO METI PROJECT as a co-creation sightseeing platform.

URL: https://photo.kankouyohou.com/

Gucci in Japan

I'm usually not into Gucci but I couldn't help but notice the advertisement above appearing in black and white in the August 18, 2016 edition (p. 10) of the International New York Times entitled (in hard to read yellow font) [street sounds]. The above image comes from bagaholicboy.com and their article about the Fall-Winter 2016 Gucci Ad Campaign. From the article:

For the Fall-Winter 2016 ad campaign which just hit the interwebs today, we have Glen Luchford lensing his 4th consecutive campaign (or is it the 5th one?) for Gucci, shot on various locations in Tokyo from a pachinko parlour to a park and even the interior of a traditional Japanese house, complete with tatami mats. There are crowded streets, there are soap bubbles, there’s even a bowl of goldfish, with each campaign image subtitled with words like ‘street sounds’, ‘pop’ and ‘relentless buzzing sound’.

You don’t have to try to break it down and try to psychoanalyse it intently for its alternative meaning; you just have to sit back and enjoy [Gucci’s Creative Director Alessandro] Michele’s world. And figure out what you’ll be buying from the collection too, of course.

You can see more of the campaign's photos at the above quoted post or at Fashionista.com.

What struck me is that the photos look like they are taken in Japan but in a very hip way without the usual stereotypes. The focus on sounds with the titles almost looking like closed captions for the Deaf is interesting as well. I knew that Gucci did big business in Japan (45% of the brands $4.3 billion sales last year) but not about the over 50 years that the company has in Japan.

More on that history here: http://www.gucci.com/cn-en/worldofgucci/articles%2Fjapan-50-anniversary#1

This post is not in any way intended to be a product endorsement (I'm an anthropologist after all and can't afford Gucci...) but rather a good example of artistic photographs with interesting concepts being used for business and profit. All artists need their patrons...

***

Actually I was working on this post a few weeks ago and kinda forgot about it. I was reminded of it today by seeing another Gucci ad in today's International New York Times (September 10, 2016, p. 14) that contained the photo below.

The model is sitting in the tokonoma, an alcove in a traditional Japanese house that usually displays a scroll, flower arrangements or other art. It is extremely bad manners to sit or stand in the tokonoma. And he's wearing shoes on the tatami! Doing further research I found the image online at Fashionista.com along with a video ad with more questionable behavior by foreign models in Japan.



So while the ad campaign might not rely too much on tired stereotypes of Japan, the behavior of the fun-loving, poor mannered foreigners should not be emulated. Don't blow bubbles in a pachinko parlor...

Related fashion post about Guess ads in Japan: http://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.jp/2014/11/new-guess-fashion-campaign-features.html

"Man arrested for trying to film up woman's skirt with smartphone" + a solution to the problem?

Story from Japan Today, 9/8/16.

Police in Osaka have arrested a 50-year-old self-employed man on suspicion of committing an obscene act after he was caught trying to film up a woman’s skirt with his smartphone camera.

According to police, the incident occurred at around 7:45 p.m. on Tuesday at a bookstore on Kita Ward. The suspect, Tetsuji Moriyama, placed his phone up the skirt of a woman in her 40s. The woman yelled at him and Moriyama fled, pursued by the woman and a male bookstore employee, Sankei Shimbun reported. Police said they caught up with him and detained him near Hankyu Umeda Station.

Police quoted Moriyama as saying he was drunk at the time and can’t remember the incident. He was arrested before for committing a similar lewd act in February, police said. At that time, Moriyama attached a miniature camera to his sandals to film up a woman’s skirt in an underground shopping area at Umeda.

Source: https://www.japantoday.com/category/crime/view/man-arrested-for-trying-to-film-up-womans-skirt-with-smartphone

The same day that Japan Today ran this story (including all the usual critical comments about the up-skirt photographer by readers), they ran a seemingly related story and possible solution (note the intended sarcasm) to up-skirt perverts...

Is this suggesting there is no stopping up-skirt perverts and that all one can do is block access to their intended journey to the center of the universe?

Source: https://www.japantoday.com/category/new-products/view/hide-the-universe-under-your-skirt-with-a-pair-of-stunning-cosmic-stockings

Japanese Photography Museum Re-Opens

From The Japan Times, 9/6/16.

Japan’s TOP museum sees the big picture

After being closed for two years for major renovations, Tokyo’s best-known photography museum in Tokyo’s fashionable Ebisu neighborhood reopened on Sept. 3, just in time to celebrate its 20-year anniversary. The venerable facility now boasts a new look, improved exhibition spaces and a new name in English: the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, or TOP Museum for short.

When it opened in 1995, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography (as it was previously known in English) was the first public institution in Japan devoted entirely to photographic art. Although the English name has been changed to better reflect the museum’s mission to handle all forms of photographic media, its Japanese title remains the same: Tokyo-to Shashin Bijutsukan.

The museum’s original mandate was to not only collect, preserve and display photographs, but also to conduct research, encourage artists and give the public more opportunities to enjoy photographs and moving images. At the time, it was almost unheard of for an art museum in Japan to exhibit photographs, so the museum was blazing a trail.

In its first two decades, the museum did the expected: showcasing the work of well-known Japanese photographers including Eikoh Hosoe, Ikko Narahara, Daido Moriyama and Nobuyoshi Araki. But it also consciously supported recognized yet still developing artists by providing exposure at critical points in their careers. Yuki Onadera and Tomoko Yoneda are notable examples who received a boost through solo exhibitions there. Curators also took a broad view of photography as art, promoting genres that tended to be overlooked, including fashion, travel and alpine photography. A handful of exhibitions tackled thorny social issues, including AIDS and gender.

In historical research, the museum undertook an ambitious 10-year project to survey, identify and exhibit early Japanese photographs, contacting museums, and government and other archives across the country to inquire about their holdings of old images. The project brought important photographs into public view and advanced the understanding of how this imported technology was adopted and adapted in Japan. This research will culminate in an anthology exhibition next March.

Yet, while all this work was progressing, time took its toll on the physical plant. In addition, lighting, exhibition and projection equipment, and storage facilities grew outdated as technology advanced. So in September 2014, the museum’s doors were closed. The staff and collection were moved out and construction crews moved in. Two years later, for its first post-renovation exhibition, the museum brought in high-profile Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto, who has based himself in New York since the 1970s and is famous for using large-format cameras and long exposures to take huge yet minutely detailed photographs.

The most noticeable changes to the museum are in the lobby and exhibition spaces, which now look brighter and more open. The carpeting in the second and third floor galleries has been replaced with wood flooring, and all galleries fitted with LED lighting and automated environmental-control systems, which matters because photographs and film are easily damaged by light and changes in temperature and humidity. Exhibition conditions in the museum now exceed international standards and, importantly, also meet Japanese government rules for the exhibition of Important Cultural Properties. This will allow the museum to display certain historical photographs that previously couldn’t be shown.

The library on the fourth floor, which has an extensive collection of photography books and just about every resource you could hope to find, is again open to the public. Getting there will be easier now with the addition of a second elevator, which addresses the frequent complaints about long waits for the building’s previous single elevator.

In other changes, the museum shop was moved up to the second floor, freeing up additional area for the first-floor cafe, operated by Maison Ichi, a trendy bakery-cafe in Daikanyama that serves up tasty sandwiches and desserts. Take- out is available, a service that will no doubt be appreciated by workers in nearby office towers, and a bit of outdoor table space was added.

Source: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2016/09/06/arts/japans-top-museum-sees-big-picture/

TOP website: http://topmuseum.jp/e/contents/index.html

"Tokyo exhibition focuses on plight of sexually exploited girls"

Photo and text from The Japan Times, 8/17/16.

In Japan, teenage girls who turn to prostitution do so because they want to make easy money or fulfill their own pleasures.

Or not really.

Contrary to popular stereotypes, “few girls I’ve seen began prostituting themselves light-heartedly or to earn easy money,” said Yumeno Nito, a 26-year-old activist who heads Colabo, a Tokyo-based organization supporting marginalized teenage girls.

“In many cases, they are in poverty, abused at home or bullied in school. . . . Feeling lonely, they wander the streets or explore the internet before being approached by adults who trick them into prostitution,” she said.

An exhibition titled “Watashi-tachi wa Kawareta” (“We Were Bought”) kicked off in Tokyo’s Kagurazaka Session House on Aug. 11 in an effort to dispel misguided assumptions. The event, co-organized by Colabo and Tsubomi, a self-help group of young girls victimized by sexual abuse and exploitation, runs through Sunday.

“It’s not like we got involved in prostitution because we wanted to. We had to. Some of us felt so isolated at home we had nowhere else to go,” a 16-year-old girl who went by the pseudonym Nao told a news conference at the Kagurazaka gallery prior to the opening of the exhibition.

“At first I thought what happened was my fault because I was too cowardly to say no. . . . Looking back, I do think I shared some blame, but eventually, I’ve realized I wasn’t entirely at fault,” she said, without elaborating on her past.

Sex trafficking and child prostitution remain long-standing problems in Japan.

In the 2016 Trafficking in Persons Report, the U.S. Department of State slammed the entrenched practice of enjo kosai, or “compensated dating,” where older men pay young women for sexual favors via gifts. It also pointed out that variants of the notorious “JK” business, which sexually exploits joshi kosei (high school girls), “continue to facilitate the sex trafficking of Japanese children.”

“Sophisticated and organized prostitution networks target vulnerable Japanese women and girls — often in poverty or with mental disabilities — in public areas such as subways, popular youth hangouts, schools, and online; some of these women and girls become trafficking victims,” the report said.

Traffickers and offenders in Japan, Nito said, rarely browbeat the girls into commercial sex.

Instead, she said, they approach isolated teens on the street with an avuncular air and offer them what they need — a quick meal, a place to stay and most importantly, a gesture of affection the girls are sorely denied at home and at school. By taking advantage of their loneliness, those adults slyly put the girls under their psychological control, wearing down their resistance, she said.

The exhibition showcases an array of photos, drawings, letters and diaries revisiting the trauma of the girls. A total of 24 girls, aged 14 to 26, were involved in organizing the event, Nito said.

About 10 of them allowed themselves to be photographed, albeit incognito, posing in various settings to re-enact particularly traumatizing scenes or situations that remain etched in their memory.

In these pictures, some are seen wandering downtown streets, while others writhe in shame on a bed. One striking photo, meanwhile, shows a kimono-clad girl posing during her actual coming-of-age ceremony, with her wrist marked by numerous traces of cuts and cigarette burns.

In another highlight, participating girls violently scribbled down on a massive piece of paper examples of verbal abuse adults heaped on them that particularly tore them apart. Phrases such as “you shouldn’t have been born,” “drop dead” and “we won’t bother to have a funeral for you even if you die” are among them.

Meanwhile, on one tell-all letter that was hung on the wall, an 18-year-old girl recalled an experience that she said had destroyed her life.

“I can trust nobody,” she wrote. The girl, whose mother was rarely at home due to work, said she had barely hit puberty when she got involved with a man who falsely charged her over a porn website she had browsed and roped her into sex under the pretext of helping her to pay the bill.

“I wanted people to know the poverty situation of girls like me and the fact that I’ve lost my dream, friends and family because of that one guy,” the letter read.

Despite the gut-wrenching nature of the displays, Nito expressed hope that visitors to the exhibition won’t focus too much on their past.

“Instead of just feeling sorry for what the girls went through, I hope visitors will realize they have stood up against their own challenges and are now moving forward, alive.”

Source: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/08/17/national/social-issues/tokyo-exhibition-focuses-plight-sexually-exploited-girls/

Exhibition time and place:
Date: 8/10-21, 2016
Place: Gallery in Tokyo, Kgurazaka session house
URL: http://www.session-house.net/map_access.html

For more information on the exhibition: http://japangiving.jp/projects/4172

"Complaint filed against police in Oita over hidden cameras"

From Japan Today, 8/13/16.

The administrator of a building used by opposition party supporters and a labor union chapter filed a complaint against the Oita prefectural police on Friday for trespassing and secretly installing cameras on the premises in June.

The police vowed to “thoroughly investigate” the incident, which took place around the time official campaigning for the House of Councillors election got under way.

Last week, they admitted that on June 18 two of their officers had installed two cameras in the grounds of the building in Beppu city in Oita Prefecture, southwestern Japan, without the permission, for the purpose of monitoring the actions of certain individuals.

The police have yet to reveal why they felt it necessary to install the cameras, which were in place through June 24, and who they were monitoring.

The building is home to a support group for the Social Democratic Party, a small opposition party, and a regional body linked to the Oita chapter of the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, known as Rengo.

The cameras were set up at two different locations—one covering the building’s entrance and another monitoring the parking lot, local labor union members said. The cameras were discovered after official campaigning for the upper house election began on June 22.

“We want the prefectural police to explain the purpose of their probe,” said Kenji Ishimoto, secretary general of the Oita labor union branch.

According to the union members, the cameras captured “images of an unspecified number of people entering and leaving the building,” a move they said constitutes a “violation of privacy.”

So far, police have said two male officers from their criminal affairs section installed the cameras on the night of June 18, but said the pair did not think the outdoor areas where they installed the cameras were privately owned.

The police acknowledged it was inappropriate to enter the premises without permission and install the cameras. They have apologized to those affected, but declined to say whether their surveillance activities were linked to the election.

Source: http://www.japantoday.com/category/crime/view/complaint-filed-against-police-in-oita-over-hidden-cameras

"Embarrassing Photos of Me, Thanks to My Right-Wing Stalkers"

Photo (that accompanied the quoted text below)

 from International New York Times, 8/5/16

Following up on the last post about a severe breach of privacy and photo ethics I offer some passages from an op-ed by Bill McKibben in the International New York Times, 8/5/16 to further illustrate the power and abuse of power of photography.

There are shameful photos of me on the internet.

In one series, my groceries are being packed into plastic bags, as I’d forgotten to bring cloth ones. In other shots, I am getting in and out of … cars. There are video snippets of me giving talks, or standing on the street. Sometimes I see the cameraman, sometimes I don’t. The images are often posted to Twitter, reminders that I’m being watched.

In April, Politico and The Hill reported that America Rising Squared, an arm of the Republican opposition research group America Rising, had decided to go after me and Tom Steyer, another prominent environmentalist, with a campaign on a scale previously reserved for presidential candidates. Using what The Hill called “an unprecedented amount of effort and money,” the group, its executive director said, was seeking to demonstrate our “epic hypocrisy and extreme positions.”

Since then, my days in public have often involved cameramen walking backward and videotaping my every move. It’s mostly when I travel (I’ve encountered them in at least five states so far, as well as in Australia), and generally when I’m in a public or semipublic space. They aren’t interested in my arguments; instead, these videos, usually wordless, are simply posted on Twitter, almost always with music. One showed me sitting in a church pew, accompanied by the song “Show Me That Smile.” The tweet read, “Ready for his close-up.”
...

This effort has resulted in all kinds of odd things appearing on right-wing corners of the web: out-of-context quotations from old books and articles apparently put on display to prove I’m a zealot, and photos from God knows who intended to make me out as a hypocrite (the plastic bags, for instance, and my travel by car, which, you know, burns gas). Mostly, they’ve just published those creepy videos, to remind me that I’m under surveillance.
...

Merely having someone with a camera follow you somehow makes you feel as if you’re doing something wrong.

...

And yet, for all that logic, I still find myself on edge. To be watched so much is a kind of never-ending nightmare. And sometimes it’s just infuriating. I skipped the funeral this summer of Patrick Sorrento, an important mentor to me at my college newspaper, because I didn’t want my minder to follow me and cause a distracting spectacle. When my daughter reports someone taking pictures of her at the airport, it drives me nuts. I have no idea if it’s actually this outfit; common decency would suggest otherwise, but that seems an increasingly rare commodity.

...

A good thing about movements is that you really do have brothers and sisters, and they do have your back. The fossil-fuel industry may threaten us as a planet, as a nation, and as individuals, but when we rise up together we’ve got a fighting chance against the powers that be.

And perhaps that realization is just a little bit scary for them.

Read the entire op-ed: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/07/opinion/sunday/embarrassing-photos-of-me-thanks-to-my-right-wing-stalkers.html

"Singer Akina Nakamori wins damages suit over secret photograph"

From Japan Today, 7/28/16.

A secret photograph of singer Akina Nakamori taken during a break from show business aggravated her illness and may have delayed the resumption of her career, a court ruled Wednesday, ordering a publisher and a photographer to pay compensation to the veteran singer.

The Tokyo District Court awarded the 51-year-old Nakamori 5.5 million yen in compensation from Shogakukan Inc and the photographer for mental distress. The singer had sought 22 million yen.

In November 2013, the photographer captured an image of Nakamori inside her Tokyo apartment, using a telephoto lens from an apartment about 45 meters away. Shogakukan printed the image in the Josei Seven weekly magazine for women.

Nakamori, who was taking a break from her career due to illness, “suffered tremendous pain due to the illegal photograph,” Presiding Judge Yuko Mizuno said. As a result, the singer was obliged to move to a different location.

Nakamori, who debuted in 1982 with the single “Slow Motion,” resumed television appearances more than a year later at the end of 2014 when she sang in NHK’s “Kohaku” (red and white) annual song festival.

The male photographer had been convicted of violating the Minor Offenses Law by the Tokyo Summary Court, which found his act was a form of voyeurism.

Source: http://www.japantoday.com/category/entertainment/view/singer-akina-nakamori-wins-damages-suit-over-secret-photograph

This is a case where someone's personal privacy was violated, a photo published without consent and a lawsuit being won by the victim under a Japanese law that is quite different than in other countries. Here's the gist of this Japanese defamation law.

In Japanese, then, defemation/meiyo kison is not about damage to mere reputation (hyoban)... it's about damage to honor (meiyo)... Reputation/hyoban is the view from the outside, how others see you... Honor/meiyo has several definitions... [I]t also includes... internal feelings that can be variously described as pride, personal integrity, dignity, or awareness of the worth of one's character. It's this concept of honor as both internal feelings and external reputation that illuminates the Japanese defamation law regime. (From Mark D. West. 2006 Secrets, Sex and Spectacle: The Rules of Scandal in Japan and the United States. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Chapter 3 "Privacy and Honor" p. 79)

For more on these issues in Japan, please review the Shooting Culture in Japan Project on VAOJ.