20.12.2011 - Exhibition Review
For the latest review of the exhibition 'At Home in Japan - beyond the minimal house' (Geffrye Museum 03-08.2011) see: exhibitionreviewHomeCultures.pdf15.10.2011 - Book Review
A review of 'The Japanese House' (Berg 2010) has been publsihed in the latest volume of the journal Home Cultures.See: bookreviewHomeCultures.pdf21.09.2011 - RAFFLE
On August 29 the exhibition 'At Home in Japan' closed and at the start of September we gave away the majority of the objects on display in a free raffle. It was a bit sad to see all the items go but it ended up being a very uplifting event with more than one hundred enthusiastic people attending, and all the objects - even the plainest pair of wooden chopsticks - have found a new home.
For a good description of the event see: http://haikugirl.wordpress.com/2011/09/03/at-home-in-japan-part-2/
31.08.2011: Review of 'The Japanese House' in Etnofoor 2011, vol.23, Issue 1, p.193-199.
click here: ReviewEtnofoor.pdf22.08.2011: 'At Home in Japan' - Telegraph's Top Five Exhibitions in London
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/uk/london/8715455/London-galleries-and-museums-top-five-exhibitions-August-22-30.html
13.07.2011: Two Reviews of 'The Japanese House' (Berg 2010)
1. By Eyal Ben-Ari (Hebrew University, Israel) for the journal Social Anthropology.Click here: Review Social Anthropology.pdf2. By Sarah Teasley (Royal College of Art, London) for the journal Design and Culture.Click here: Review Design and Culture.pdf
08.06.2011 - 'At Home in Japan' reviewed in the July issue of BluePrint Magazine
On 12.06.2011 I will give two exhibition talks at the Geffrye Museum.
- Sunday 12 June – with exhibition curator Inge Daniels. Talk at 2.00pm and repeated at 3.30pm. Admission included with your exhibition ticket
An opportunity to explore and discuss themes and a selection of the photographs and objects on display.For more information or to book a place at any of these events please contact the Information and Bookings Officer on 020 7739 9893, or by email.
11.04.2011 - Symposium 'At Home in Japan' at the Geffrye Museum May 14 / 10am to 4pm
Domestic Buddhist altar: display in the exhibition At Home in Japan
22.03.2011: Exhibition Opening at the Geffrye Museum in London
At Home in Japan - Beyond the mInimal house (22.03 - 29.08.2011)
see: http://www.geffrye-museum.org.uk/whatson/special/
The exhibition, based on my recent book about contemporary urban Japanese homes (Berg 2010), explores how private lives are lived in Japan today. It examines a variety of aspects of the home – from decoration, display, furniture and the tatami mat, to eating, sleeping, ‘gifting’, cleaning and hygiene and worship.
We have recreated the layout of a typical urban apartment and filled each space with a selection of the mundane material culture inhabitants might surround themselves with. We hope that through an active engagement with these quotidian spaces, objects and images, visitors may experience a degree of what it feels to be at home in contemporary Japan. By stressing the similarity between domestic practices across various cultural contexts we hope that people will encounter another culture on a more empathetic level instead of gazing at its exotic nature.
The objects displayed were sourced from: (1) donations made by participants in the 2003 study as well as long-term Japanese friends, (2) my personal collection, (3) purchases made during two shopping trips to Japan in 2009 and 2010. Because of budgetary limitations a more than average number of objects were purchased at discount shops. For example, whereas we display a selection of cheap slippers from 100 yen shops and a discount futon from a home store, most Japanese might purchase these types of goods in more up-market shops. For similar reasons, we have purchased large items of furniture at IKEA in London. Still, we only selected products that are also available at IKEA Japan and chose colours and materials that are popular Locally.
Free Raffle
On September 3 many small items used in the exhibition will be given away in a free raffle. Tickets will be distributed to those present on the day.
20.12.2010 - A first academic review of 'The Japanese House'
written by Daniel Miller and published on www. materialworldblog.com on 10.12.2010
Digital Kvelling, Daniel Miller, Department of Anthropology at UCL
Bevan. A. and Wengrow. D. 2010. Cultures of Commodity Branding. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.Clarke, A. 2010. Design Anthropology. Berlin: Springer Verlag.Daniels, I. 2010. The Japanese House. Oxford: Berg.Norris. L. 2010. Recycling Indian Clothing. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.The term is probably better known in New York than London, but basically Kvelling is a Yiddish expression for taking pride in the achievement of others, e.g. one’s children. But I don’t see why this can’t extend to students and colleagues. Basically it means that I am using this posting to note four major new publications in Material Culture Studies, but at the same time admitting to a personal interest/pride in all of them.
First a quite superb book The Japanese House by Inge Daniels. Although almost all readers will first be entranced by the excellent photographs taken by Susan Andrews, and the way they have been integrated into the book as a whole to make the entire thing an aesthetic delight, a brief read of any given section of this work will soon inform the reader that this is NOT a coffee table book. Even to call this a work of ethnography would be to diminish the sense of authority it carries. This is clearly someone who had indeed worked as an ethnographer in Japan but more than that spent many years there covering several projects so that the authors knowledge on the history, the wider sociology and popular culture of Japan are as significant as the ethnographic experiences that are essential to her apprehension of something that is in Japan particularly private and normally inaccessible. One reason why there was previously almost no work on this topic was that it was just so hard for an outside to gain access. But irrespective of where this is based, as someone who has been working on issues of homes and home interiors for a very considerable time I am really not sure I have ever come across a better text on the material culture of the home. Without pretention or obfuscation this book manages to convey the kind of holism that is latent in material culture studies and which makes a section on cosmology and the spirits somehow seamlessly joined to issues of political economy, gender, and basic material concerns such as storage and mess. There is a real sense of how the private worlds of the Japanese family are articulated by moving through space, both within the home and outside. The icing on this case lies in a set of charming and fascinating additional essays on topics such as the choreography of domestic slippers, street gardens, alcoves and a dolls festival. I think this is going to grow into one of my all time favourite books in material culture
To continue reading about the other three books reviews go to http://www.materialworldblog.com/
28.10.2010 / Lecture and Book Launch at the Japan Foundation in London
On the 1st of December I will give an introductory lecture to the book (The Japanese House) at the Japan Foundation in London .
The event starts at 6.30 pm and will be followed by a small reception/ book launch, while some of Susan Andrews photographs will be exhibited. Attendance is free but you need to book beforehand.
I hope to see you there!
01.10.2010 / The wait is over!
'The Japanese House' is in the shops now! Below is a fragment of a first review of the book by Prof. Daniel Miller, Department of Anthropology at UCL, London.
'This is a really significant achievement, its not just a wonderful book about the Japanese house but a new style and new standard in reporting the nature of the domestic interior anywhere. I don’t think there has ever been this blend of ethnographic insights into the lives of families illustrated in such detail with tensions and contradictions of material practice pertaining to things in the home and accompanied by such apt and helpful photographs.' (Daniel Miller)
11.08.2010 - Inspection Copies
I have just received an 'inspection' copy of my book. If all goes well the first batch will soon be making its long journey from Hong Kong to the UK and copies should be available by the 10th of September.
Klick here for a 20 percent discount when ordering the book: discountTheJapaneseHouse.pdf18.07 - 10.08.2010 / Japan - Geffrye Museum Shopping Trip
I have just arrived back in japan to collect/buy a variety of household goods for my upcoming exhibition (March 2011) at the Geffrye Museum in London entitled: At Home in Japan - Beyond the Minimal House. My shopping list is more than 5 pages long; slippers, drying racks, futons, lights, garden tools, seasonal dolls are just a few of the things I hope to find. It will be a very hectic trip and I will depend once more on a support network of very generous Japanese friends!
I have already entered the last week of my stay in Japan and 10 packages are on their way by ship to London. I have also posted some fragile items by airmail and today (August 2) one box containing two Japanese display dolls, donated by a very kind family from Osaka, has already arrived in the UK. I only sent it from Kyoto Central Postoffice on the 31st of July; AMAZING!!
04-06-2010 / Image and Object Workshop, University of Oxford
This workshop organised by Sarah James (Art History, Christ Church) brings together people fromdifferent disciplines at Oxford to enage in a debate about the uses of photographs as images, objectsand documents. It should be a very exciting event!
Programme
10.00 Introduction: Craig Clunas
10.30 Session 1: Political Bodies & the Photographic Document
Michael Biggs (Sociology), Jane Caplan (History), Sarah James (History of Art)
Discussant: Alastair Wright
11.45 Session 2: Photographs as Objects: Archives & Collections
Richard Ovenden (Bodleian), Sally Crawford/Katharina Ulmschneider, (Archaeology)
Vicky Brown (History of Art/Centre Visual Studies), (John Johnson Collection)
Discussant: Gervase Rosser
1.00 pm Lunch
2.00 Session 3: Deconstructing Images:Photography &/As Methodology
Katerina Reed-Tsocha, (Ruskin), Rebecca Beasley (English), Assimina Kaniari (History of Art), Geraldine Johnson (History of Art)
Discussant: Hanneke Grootenboer
Tea: 3.15
3.45 Session 4: Photography’s Spaces & Places
Inge Daniels (Anthropology), Derek McCormack (Geography) Clare Harris (Anthropology), Dan Hicks (Pitt Rivers)
Discussant: Craig Clunas
5pm Closing remarks
12-05-2010 / Researching Home
On May 12 I gave a talk about visual and material methods to study the home at an ESRC funded workshop at the University of Manchester.
A summary of the discussions will be made available on line at www.manchester.ac.uk/realities
'The Japanese House' - Cover
12/2009: The cover of my upcoming book has finally arrived. It should be in the shops by June 2010.
Japanese Ruins, Fragments and Decay.
- Murielle Hladik (2008, Traces et fragments dans l'estetique Japonaise) has written one of the key academic works about ruins and the notion of decay throughout Japanese history. A real treat!
- Photographer, Michael John Grist, shares his intruiging photographs of Japanese ruins ranging from ghost towns, abandonned hotels and prisons, to disused theme parks, ski lifts and military installations.Snapshots from fieldwork in Japan (1996-2006)
