Dr Yuko Kikuchi

Yuko’s research approach is interdisciplinary – informed by art history, cultural studies, anthropology, and importantly, locally informed knowledge in local languages that do not always fit easily into the Euroamerican academic system and English-centred normative framework. Various transnational methodologies such as Françoise Lionnet and Shu-mei Shih’s idea of ‘minor transnationalism’ have informed Yuko’s research strategy in that they problematise the persisting colonial centre-periphery binary relations, and find alternative ways of thinking by ‘creolising’/‘conjuring up’; by bypassing the centre normative ideas; and through presentation of multiple centred local art and histories. Yuko’s long-term project on Mingei (art of the people) is an experimental platform for exploring such methodologies, as well as to identify locally specific ideas and creativities, while challenging the embedded colonial and centre-peripheral power relation in the idea inherited from the Arts and Crafts movement. A recent revival in the contemporary interest in everydayness and people’s art, has connected here with the black art movement (e.g. Theaster Gates’ ‘Afro Mingei’), another transformative development. Yuko’s ultimate interest sees Mingei converge with activism for sustainable cultures by creating space for untold and marginalised histories and redressing uneven power relations.

AHRC (2021- 2023, as CO-I)

‘Women's leadership in designing social innovation: mutual learning in the Asia-Pacific’

Australia-Japan Foundation (2021-2024, as CO-I)

‘Women’s leadership through craft: Mutual learning between Australia and Japan’

KAKEN (Japanese government funding, 2010 – 2012, as CO-I)

‘Oriental Modernity: Modern Design Development in East Asia, 1920-1990’

AHRC (2012-14, as PI)

‘Translating and Writing Modern Design Histories in East Asia for the Global World’

Asia Research Institute Research Fellowship at National University of Singapore (2011)

Rockefeller Archive Center fellowship

The British Academy/Leverhulme Research Grant 2013-15)

The British Academy-ASEASUK ECAF fellowship (2014)

The Terra Foundation Senior Fellow in American Art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (2015-16)

For ‘Russel Wright and Cold War Design in Asia’ project.

AHRC (2007-10, as CO-I)

‘Forgotten Japonisme: The Taste for Japanese Art in Britain and the USA, 1920s-1950s’

Japan Foundation Endowment Committee (2003)

Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation (2004)

The Visual Culture during the Russo-Japanese War’ project

The Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation (2000-2007, as PI)

‘Refracted Modernity: Visual Culture and Identity in Colonial Taiwan’ project

The Japan Foundation Endowment Grant (1991-97, as CO-I)

The Kao Foundation of the Arts and Science (1991-97, as CO-I)

‘Ruskin in Japan’ project

Nominated for the Charles Rufus Morey Book Award in 2009 for Yuko Kikuchi ed., Refracted Modernity: Visual Culture and Identity in Colonial Taiwan, Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press (2007).

Taiwanese Government Executive Yuan Cultural Award for academic contribution to Taiwanese Studies (nominated by the Taiwanese government), 2007.

Winner of 1998 The Japan Festival Prize and 1999 The Gesner Golden Award for Ruskin in Japan 1890-1940: Nature for Art, Art for Life exhibition and catalogue (1997).

Transnational and Transformative Mingei Movement (ongoing)

This is Yuko’s lifelong research project about Mingei (art of the people) in a global and transnational context through specific investigation of the transformative creativity and scalable modernities that developed in the transnational Mingei movements across the world. An exhibition ‘Art without Heroes’ will be organised at the William Morris Gallery in spring 2024, and the chapter ‘Morris, Mingei and Studio Crafts: the transformative idea of the Art of the People’ will be published in the accompanying exhibition catalogue: Roisin Inglesby ed., Art Without Heroes: Mingei between Japan and Britain, New Haven and London: Yale University Press. This chapter focuses on Indian potter Gurcharan Singh’s involvement in the Japanese Mingei movement and his idea of Mingei in his Blue Pottery, as well as Theaster Gates’ idea of ‘Afro Mingei’ as the most recent transformative development.

Sustainability of ‘Crafts’(2019-present)

This research investigates sustainability and problems in traditional craft culture in Japan, exploring the the case of Ishikawa prefecture in some detail. Of particular interest are the cases of women ceramic artists and non-Japanese craft artists who work in the region. The project investigates the effect brought about by introducing ‘outsiders’ into traditional and aging craft cultures (such as Kutani ware or Wajima lacquer), their story of being marginalised and their process of negotiation in response, as well as their innovative creativity which contributes to cultural sustainability. The study started in 2019 as a collaborative project funded by Kanazawa College of Art and is currently developing into a larger global project through the AHRC and Australia-Japan Foundation funded project on women's leadership in designing social innovation and craft in Pacific-Asia. The first outcomes have been delivered as a series of conference papers, and currently a book chapter is under revision process as publication of ‘Sustainability in “traditional” pottery in Japan: the case of women’s leadership and “Kutanism”’. In Seungyeon SANG and Meghen Jones eds., A Global History of Japanese Ceramics (Louise Cort memorial volume), 2024.

Highlights

Watanabe, Toshio and Yuko Kikuchi. (1997). Ruskin in Japan 1890-1940: Nature for Art, Art for Life. Tokyo: Cogito.

Kikuchi, Yuko (author, ed). (2007). Refracted Modernity: Visual Culture and Identity in Colonial Taiwan, Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.

Kikuchi, Yuko. (2004) Japanese Modernisation and Mingei Theory: Cultural Nationalism and Oriental Orientalism. London: Routledge Curzon.

Kikuchi, Yuko (translated by Boyoon Her) (2022). Korean translation of Japanese Modernisation and Mingei Theory: Cultural Nationalism and Oriental Orientalism (2004) with added new preface.

Kikuchi, Yuko, Wendy Siuyi Wong, and Tingyi S. Lin eds. (2016). Making Trans/National Contemporary Design History (10th Conference of the International Committee for Design History and Design Studies Proceedings), Sau Paulo: Blucher. (ISSN: 2318-6968) http://www.proceedings.blucher.com.br/article-list/icdhs2016/list#articles

Kikuchi, Yuko (author and editor). (2015). Negotiating Histories: Traditions in Modern and Contemporary Asia-Pacific Art, Special Issue of World Art, 5-1.

Kikuchi, Yuko and Yunah Lee eds. (2014). Transnational Modern Design Histories in East Asia, Special Issue of The Journal of Design History, 27-4.

Book chapters and Journal articles since 2014

Kikuchi, Yuko. (2023). ‘De-imperialisation of “Japanese Art History” of “This Country” from “Crafts” with focus on gender, tradition and sustainability, Nodoka Odawara and Hiroki Yamamoto eds., Art of ‘This Country’: De-Imperialisation of ‘Japanese Art History’, Tokyo: Getsuyōsha. (in Japanese)

‘Afro-mingei: A conversation between Theaster Gates, Yuko Kikuchi and Hiroki Yamamotto’, Tank. 10-17, pp. 130-139.

Kikuchi, Yuko. (2023). ‘Black, Women, Crafts/Hobby Crafts: intersectional art history with multiple layers of marginalisation’, ‘What is Black Art’ Part 2. Tokyo Art Beat. 3 May.（https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/articles/-/black-art-02-202305）

Kikuchi, Yuko. (2023). Interview with ‘Theaster Gates’, and Interview with Maron Griffith, Bijutsu Techō, April.

Kikuchi, Yuko. ‘What is Black Art: the history, the context, and the major artists in Britain’ Part 1. (2023). Tokyo Art Beat. 16 February. (https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/articles/-/black-art-01-202302)

Kikuchi, Yuko with Hirotake Imanishi. (2022). ‘The Sustainability of Crafts: shifting the paradigm of “traditional crafts”’, ICAS 12 Kyoto（International Convention of Asia Scholars）:Crafting A Global Future Proceedings, Amsterdam University Press (https://www.aup-online.com/content/proceedings/ICAS-12), pp. 269-274.

Kikuchi, Yuko. (2022). ‘Please Come Yesterday: an invitation to a radically local approach’. Please Come Yesterday. Kanazawa: Suisei Club Gallery. pp. 112-122.

Kikuchi, Yuko. (2021). ‘Review: GO FOR KOGEI 2021 Hokuriku Crafts Festival: Live in the Age of Crafts, 10 September-24 October, 2021’. Journal of Modern Craft, 14-3: 303-312.

Kikuchi, Yuko. (2021). ‘Review of “Unconsciousness as a Method’ exhibition’ from a perspective of “crafts”’. In Shibuya Taku ed., Expression of Technical Method. Kanazawa College of Art. pp. 31-32.

Kikuchi, Yuko. (2020). ‘Can A Nation Survive through Craft? colonial past, current subjectivities and sustainable futures’. In. Fedju Vukić and Iva Kostešić eds., Lessons to Learn? Past Design Experiences and Contemporary Design Practices (Proceedings of the 12th ICDHS conference), Zagreb: UP12M Books, pp. 737-771, ISBN 978-953-7703-67-7

Kikuchi, Yuko. (2019). ‘Modern Design and the Politics of Bamboo: Charlotte Perriand and Her Exhibition Selection, Tradition, Creation in Japan (1941)’. In Le Monde Nouveau de Charlotte Perriand, Paris: Fondation Louis Vuitton with Gallimard. pp. 273-292.

Kikuchi, Yuko. (2019). ‘Transnationalism for Design History: knowledge production and decolonization through East Asian design history’. In Ann Massey ed., A Companion to Contemporary Design (since 1945). London: Blackwell. pp. 75-90.

Kikuchi, Yuko. (2016). ‘The Cold War Design Business of John D. Rockefeller 3rd‘. In Penny Sparke and Fiona Fisher eds., The Routledge Companion to Design Studies. London and New York: Routledge. pp. 518-530.

Kikuchi, Yuko. (2016). ‘Minor Transnational Inter-Subjectivity in the People's Art of Kitagawa Tamiji’. In Bert Winther-Tamaki and Ken Yoshida eds., Commensurable Distinctions of Modern Japanese Art History, Special Issue of Josai University's journal-the Review of Japanese Culture and Society XXV. pp. 266-284.

Kikuchi, Yuko. (2015). ‘The Craft Debate at the Crossroads of Global Visual Culture: re-centring craft in postmodern and postcolonial histories’. World Art, 5-1: 87-115.

2021-present Jury of awarding research grant, DNP Foundation for Cultural Promotion.

2016-present Board member of ICDHS (International Committee on Design History and Studies)

2009–13 Editorial board member of Journal of Design History (UK).

2008-present Advisory board member for World Art (University of East Anglia).

2002-present Advisory Board member for Design History (Design History Workshop Japan).