"Awareness and Connectedness”: Artistic Lessons from Scotland and Japan

By Zachary Vincent

On the brisk Friday morning of February the 11th 2022, I made my way to Edinburgh for a conference with the purpose of discovering the connections between Japanese and Scottish art. The Scottish Society for Art History in partnership with the National Museum of Japanese History, Rekihaku’s “Scotland and Japan Conference”, held at the National Museum of Scotland on February 10th and 11th, was an ambitious event meant to bring together some of the leading figures in the visual arts and their history in Scotland and Japan to explore connections between the two countries in the past and today. I had no idea what to expect when attending the conference, but I found its contents incredibly interesting. Especially fascinating to me was the first session of the second day of the event, which took three popular artists currently based in Japan and analyzed the impact of Scotland and its artistic heritage upon their art.

Takahiro Kondo is a man who comes from an almost legendary artistic dynasty. Generations of his family have been known for their porcelain work, his grandfather Yuzo Kondo even being named a ‘Living National Treasure’ by Japan in 1977 for his contribution to the arts. Coming from this esteemed background though, did not mean that the path forward for Kondo was always clear. When discussing this at the conference, he mentioned the ways in which a significant part of his journey involved training and working in Scotland, specifically at the Edinburgh College of Art. An important reason for going so far from his native Japan to discover himself artistically was, according to Kondo, the question of whether the type of expression he showed through his porcelain and sculpture was art or craft. Citing the differences in the perception of this question between cultures, Kondo explained that getting a new perspective, specifically his described ‘Scottish’ one in which craft can always be art so long as it has clear intention, was valuable to his creative process. Kondo recognized that he was not going to ‘solve’ such a dilemma which has been critical throughout so much of art history, however he added nuance to the argument when he assessed that calling certain types of craftsmanship ‘art’ can limit the creator in some ways, while also providing opportunities. The creation of human figures was, further, an example of seeds sown during Kondo’s Scottish education, coming back to him with a new force when he turned 50 and began viewing both his own mortality and human relationships with the natural world in a different way, inspiring his project of casting himself in ceramics in many different styles. And so, in Takahiro Kondo is an example of an artist who was able to find new meaning in a form of expression which was anything but new to his family, and Scotland played a vital role in influencing this process.

Figure 1. Takahiro Kondo, Untitled Green Mist, ceramic, 2008-10, courtesy of Takahiro Kondo.

Kate Thomson’s story is, in a way, a reverse of Kondo’s. Hailing from Scotland, Kate has practiced as an artist in Japan for decades, where she lives with her husband, fellow artist Hironori Katagiri. One of Thomson’s greatest triumphs was bringing Scottish contemporary art to Japan on an unseen-before scale, in the form of the Iwate Art Festival UK98, which is believed to be the largest ever showing of Scottish contemporary art outside Scotland at one place and time. Repeatedly referencing the essentiality of bilateralism in artistic movements throughout the conference, Thomson’s career certainly reflects that mindset, perhaps never more than in the aftermath of the devastating 2011 earthquake in Japan. In the midst of loss, Thomson witnessed and contributed to the creation of something new, something unique between Scotland and Japan which took an unusual shape: postcards. The project which would later be known as Postcards to Japan (2011) was initiated by Scottish artists wanting to show solidarity with and support for those suffering in Japan in the wake of the natural disaster. Thomson continued this motion by leading a subsequent movement, Postcards from Japan (2011), which manifested the processing of grief by Japanese artists for a western, specifically Scottish, audience and conveying that most important message of the time, “I have not lost what matters.” Time after time, Thomson found ways to make the best of different artistic traditions, particularly in her specialty field of sculpture. Taking inspiration from her time working in teaching the arts in Glasgow, Thomson then acquired a whole different skill set while in Japan, one which she described as being far more “hands-on” and “technical” than the type of sculptural training given in Scotland. Bilateral movement in education, in inspiration, and certainly in artistic gifts is what defines the art of Kate Thomson in relation to Scotland and Japan.

Figure 2. Kate Thomson and others, Postcards from Japan, 2011, displayed at St. John's church, Edinburgh, courtesy of Ukishima Sculpture Studio.

The final speaker of this session of the conference was Thomson’s husband, Hironori Katagiri, affectionately referred to by his wife as ‘Kata’. Katagiri’s career took him to Scotland in a more roundabout way than the other artists featured, involving working on large public sculpture works in Austria as an initial introduction to western traditions and the subsequent founding of the Scottish Sculpture Workshop in Aberdeenshire. It was while in Scotland that Katagiri met Thomson and they decided to return to his homeland in Japan. That move was not able, Katagiri mentioned playfully, to keep him from Scotland from long, though. One project continued to draw him back, Nostalgia (2001), which is an exploration of what different parts of a whole mean in different contexts of display and frame of mind. Beginning with a single large block of granite, Katagiri carefully split the stone and brought its pieces (almost) back together. Considering the subject matter of the piece as well as the life experiences of its creator, Nostalgia is a symbol of interconnectedness and the value of ever-changing perspectives in world with more that brings people together than keeps them apart.

Figure 3. Hironori Katagiri, Nostalgia, granite, 2001, courtesy of Ukishima Sculpture Studio.

The artists present at the Scotland and Japan Conference demonstrated the power of the modern age to bring people together, considering that none of them were physically in Edinburgh and yet they could all contribute. They demonstrated the growing cultural exchanges in our world. And, more than anything, they demonstrated the ways in which one country’s artistic traditions need not be limited in their contemporary influence by geography. And when limits to contact and growth among the world’s artists are torn down, as has increasingly been the case with Scotland and Japan, shocking beauty is the result, which was best stated during the conference by Takahiro Kondo, who closed with the words, “Awareness and Connectedness make Coincidence Inevitable.”