Artistic Engagement with Maritime Pathways by Dr. James Jack

March 2, 3:00pm - 4:30pm
Mānoa Campus, Center for Korean Studies - Auditorium

Center for Japanese Studies Seminar Series / Crown Prince Akihito Scholarship Lecture. Dr. James Jack is an Assistant Professor of Visual Art at the Yale-NUS College in Singapore and the 2007-2009 Crown Prince Akihito Scholarship recipient. The description of his lecture is as follows: What memories lie in the coral life, sunken artifacts and ocean currents in between the islands of southwest Japan? Led by the spirits of ancestors found at a shipwreck site near Minami Ukibaru Island in Okinawa a story of cultural interaction between island cultures begins. Memories from the sea illuminate maritime networks between island cultures from the Ryūkyū archipelago to Kyushu, Shikoku, as well as Europe. Contemporary art- works revive the net of interconnectivity between islands. A re-imagination of botanical migration between islands for the artwork Migration of a Cycad (2015) opens a creative space that was overlooked in colonial records for linking people today. Finally, the work Sea Birth (2017) created in the islands east of Nakagusuku Bay in Okinawa, opens a space where fragments from the past are reflected upon as the material for a new life born from the sea.


Event Sponsor
Center for Japanese Studies, Mānoa Campus

More Information
(808) 956-2665, cjs@hawaii.edu

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