Exploring Visual Counterculture in Japan - with Marco Bohr

Date
Monday 15 June 2026

Time
6.45pm

Venue
The Swedenborg Society
20-21 Bloomsbury Way (Hall entrance on Barter St)
London WC1A 2TH
[Map]

Booking Details
Free- Booking essential

Please help us to keep this event free and open to all! The activities of The Japan Society are made possible thanks to the support of its members. If you are planning to attend this event and are not a member (as an individual or through your employer), please consider becoming a member or making a donation if you can - the recommended donation is £5. Thank you!

In this lecture, Dr Marco Bohr will explore the role that photographs, films and other forms of visual art played in relation to countercultural movements in Japan from the turbulent 1960s to the present day. Such images, as Marco will argue in this richly illustrated talk, are not just passively depicting or documenting counterculture, but rather, they actively participate in the dynamics of resistance in their own right. The lecture will provide a broad overview of some of the core themes that are covered in his recently published monograph Visual Counterculture in Japan, ranging from documentary filmmaking and photography as a form of resistance against US military occupation on Okinawa, to the crucial role of image cultures in relation to 1990s subcultures. The lecture will seek to highlight the powerful role of the image as a social, cultural and political device.

Dr Marco Bohr is an Associate Professor in Design and Digital Art at Nottingham Trent University. In 2011 Marco completed a PhD that investigated photographic discourses in Japan during the 1990s at the University of Westminster. Marco was a JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow at Ritsumeikan University in 2017. His edited book Capture Japan: Visual Culture and the Global Imagination from 1952 to the Present was published by Bloomsbury in 2022. His most recent monograph Visual Counterculture in Japan: Political Shifts and the Dynamics of Resistance was published by Bloomsbury in 2025 with a paperback version due in late summer 2026.

If you have any questions, please call The Japan Society office on 020 3075 1996 or email events@japansociety.org.uk.

Image: Yamashiro Chikako, Seaweed Woman [image detail], Video, Lambda print, 2008.

Supported by the Toshiba International Foundation (TIFO)

Booking Info

• Providing Details in the Booking Form
  Please enter the full name and email address for each attendee in the booking form. If you're booking as a member, please provide the email address associated with your membership so we can match your information in our system. 
  
  
• Booking Confirmation
  You should receive an automated email from The Japan Society confirming your booking. If you don't receive any confirmation emails, please check your spam folder or email events@japansociety.org.uk.
  
  
• Help us to keep this event free and open to all!
  If you are not a member of The Japan Society (as an individual or through your employer), please consider becoming a member or making a donation if you can - the recommended donation is £5.