Upcoming Events

The International Book Club at Queen's College, Oxford meets once a term to discuss a novel translated into English from any language. At the next Book Club meeting, which will be held online, participants will discuss Matsuda Aoko’s 'Where the Wild Ladies Are' and will be joined by the book's translator, Polly Barton. The club is open to everyone, both members and non-members of the university.

The Coronet Theatre in London were inspired by plans for the Tokyo Olympics to take a look at the current arts scene in Japan, which we rarely have a chance to see in Europe, especially now when travel is so limited. ELECTRIC JAPAN, offers a slice of the Japanese arts scene, and is part of the Coronet’s online Inside Out series. Featuring performances of 4.48 Psychosis, Trigger Point, Mr Potsunen’s Peculiar Slice of Life and much more.

Tokyo-based ten-piece and wild Japanese folk-song fusionists, Minyo Crusaders join forces with Colombian cumbia radicals Frente Cumbiero on Minyo Cumbiero, a four track EP where ancient Japanese folk songs meet heavyweight Colombian styles. Recorded across two days in Bogota in August 2019 Minyo Cumbiero captures a thrilling exchange between two radical and triumphant groups.

At the age of seven years old, Sakubei Yamamoto (1892-1984) moved with his family to the coal mines of the Chikuho region in Kyushu. He was apprenticed to a colliery blacksmith at the age of twelve, and later worked as a mine blacksmith and coalminer until the age of 63 in 1955. He then became a colliery security guard when he started painting his memories of the mining industry. Organised as part of a World tour by the Bridge Together Project, this exhibition focuses on a small selection of the 2000 drawings and paintings by the artist.

E. A. Hornel took and collected thousands of images throughout his life, and he used many of these to inspire the paintings that made him wealthy and successful. This exhibition of the Glasgow Boy’s paintings and photographs examines how Hornel worked, explores how he looked at the world as a white, western man photographing young women in ‘exotic’ locations and interrogates the way we look at him today. It introduces visitors to Hornel and his early style and illustrates how strongly his art was shaped by photography.

Sumida River in Sign Language brings the natural and human worlds together in a drama of physical gesture and facial expression. Performed by deaf, unmasked actors, the play is suffused with the life of the river: pines bending in the wind, flocks of Miyako birds and mist swirling in from the bay.