Event — IIAS lecture

Between Tourist Souvenir and Sojourner Memento: Meiji-era photograph albums of Japan

23 April 2007

23/04/2007 - 15:30

23 April 23 2007
15.30-17.00 hrs
Heren 17, Bushuis, Kloveniersburgwal 48, Amsterdam

Lecture by Dr. David Odo
Manfred and Hanna Heiting Scholar, Rijksmusem
Research Fellow International Institute for Asian Studies

In the last half of the nineteenth century, ideas of and about Japanese art and society permeated many forms of Western cultural expression to a hitherto unprecedented extent. Japan became a regular stop on the globetrotter's world tour, thanks to this strong cultural presence and the easing of travel restrictions and an improvement in international transportation infrastructure. The photograph album quickly emerged as an essential souvenir for tourists to Japan and massive quantities of albums and loose prints were shipped from Japan to Europe and North America by ever increasing numbers of visitors. It is this material that characterizes most Western collections and, unsurprisingly, has also been the subject of most Western scholarship on early Japanese photographs. But are all these albums 'tourist' objects? This presentation will discuss albums of photographs from the Meiji era (1868 - 1912) in the Rijksmuseum collection. Close examination reveals that these albums are not necessarily tourist in nature and in fact have much to tell us about other kinds of relationships between foreigners and Japanese in this period. The albums can serve as useful points of departure for thinking about these relationships and the larger context of the foreign presence in Japan.

For details, please contact: Jeroen de Kloet b.j.dekloet@uva.nl