Part of the 2019 Sydney Asian Art Series.
In this lecture, Dr Yasufumi Nakamori introduces some little known critical aspects of the history of Japanese photography, namely, photographic images and visual culture surrounding selected large-scale earthquakes, from the Nohbi Earthquake in 1891 to the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake. He pays attention to issues such as technologies, circulation, and the impact of the images, and examines their relationship to collective memory and imaginary projections of a city.
People
Yasufumi Nakamori
Dr Yasufumi Nakamori is Senior Curator, International Art (Photography) at the Tate Modern, London. Originally from Osaka, Nakamori initially studied law at the University of Wisconsin and practiced in New York City before undertaking a second career in art history following 9/11, going on to obtain his PhD in art history from Cornell University. Prior to joining Tate Modern, Nakamori was head of photography and new media at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. From 2008-2016 he was curator of photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, where his exhibitions included Katsura: Picturing Modernism in Japanese Architecture Photographs by Ishimoto Yasuhiro (2010) and For a New World to Come: Experiments in Japanese Art and Photography, 1968–1979 (2015). His award-winning catalogue Katsura: Picturing Modernism in Japanese Architecture, which documented the collaboration between photographer Yasuhiro Ishimoto and Pritzker prize-winning architect Kenzo Tange.