East Meets East was a regional community heritage project set up to explore 150 years of grassroots connections between East Anglia and Japan. Although the project has now ended, you can still view a selection of materials (photos, audio visual, etc) on the East meets East website (please click here).

The impressive exhibition was shown in Norwich, Great Yarmouth and Peterborough and involved over 100 individuals from diverse backgrounds: artists, academics, school children, writers, Japanese residents, families of war veterans, and business people each made their own unique contribution to the project through research, oral history, art work and film projects. The exhibition did not seek to avoid difficult topics but emphasised the overriding importance of reconciliation, celebrating friendships today and building strong relationships for the future. Highlights included:

• Personal accounts, including one Japanese lady who came to the UK with her British husband over 70 years ago and who died recently at the age of 102.
• Manga displays made by local students.

The website will be available to view until December 8 2010.