But seeing as it's fresh in the mind, I'll start with the more recent. You might have guessed from Twitter that I had my second option of the term, called Everyday in Modern Asia. The course basically does what it says on the tin, but with an extra element - we also looked at the 'everyday' represented in the Museum, and seeing what we could extract out of the objects on display.
The week began with discussing the reading, which aimed to ask 'where is Asia', and how can museums really represent 'Asia'. We tried to deconstruct the ideas of East and West (what's in between?!), and how much of this categorisation totally limits our ideas of ethnicities, of the 'Other', and solidifies stereotypes that somewhere in time, space and history has been constructed. But then, how does the museum, especially those built around collecting 'other', expand from their collections and 'subvert', or rather revert, the objects within them in order to tell a new story. One of the questions was whether anybody can really 'authentically' represent the 'Other', so we discussed how maybe a better way is to bring together new narratives to create dialogues in their audience, rather than dictate an ethnographic rhetoric.
One of the objectives for the rest of the week was to work in groups of four to research a particular Asian object in any of the V&A galleries in relation to the everyday and modernity. Our group (Sophie, Olivia, Melissa and I) went for a set of lacquer inrō from the Japan Gallery. In the groups we needed to prepare a Soapbox presentation and a blogpost for publishing somewhere tbc...
The set is by a famous Edo period lacquer artist, Shibata Zeshin, and from around 1865. The collection is made up of twelve inrō, and represent one for each month of the year (in order top to bottom, left to right). We were intrigued by the completely different designs, and also what they were actually used for. The label described them as Japanese male fashion accessories, that were highly sought after by the Western market after Japan opened its doors to the world. They are all beautifully and intricately decorated, we all immediately picked a favourite. We were also keen to write about two key interests within the group - fashion and collecting - and inrō seemed like a perfect choice.
An inrō is a miniature stacking box, originally used for storing identity seals and medicine. Beginning as quite a humble object for carrying small items, they surged in popularity in the 17th century as a utilitarian item. Inrō are actually only one component of an essential accessory for the wealthy Japanese man - the inrō is hung from a cord and secured to an obi by a netsuke, with the separate parts boxes held down and together by a bead called an ojime. This is when it emerged what a netsuke was originally used for; we had always thought they were miniature carvings, highly sought after by Westerners in the 19th century. Netsuke were in fact decorative fastenings, a crucial part of a moneyed man's outfit. Inrō, even at the height of their production, were always costly investment objects. They might be related to the modern day designer handbag, or Rolex watch.
However, as well as quality, it was also about the quantity of inrō that a wealthy Japanese man owned and displayed on their body. The inrō served a social purpose in a time when social hierarchies prevailed and sumptuary laws prohibited conspicuous displays of extravagance. Inrō became a canvas for wealth, decadence, taste and fashion that could easily be hidden behind a kimono sleeve if necessary. The fashion was competitive, giving rise to an explosion of production of high quality inrō ensembles. Men enjoyed exhibiting wit, poetry and style through clever combinations of imagery through the inrō, the netsuke and their kimono, adding to the theatre of their social gatherings.
My favourite was the 8th inrō, a design in the style of an ink cake with a purposely distressed aesthetic, apparently 'worn and chipped' in areas (see the Search the Collections entry here). It is apparently referencing Japan's beautiful moon this time of year, where one write poetry and drank a lot of sake - sounds good to me! We're hoping to be able to research a little further into individual inrō from this set for the blogpost, so I'm looking forward to getting my teeth into this one.Also I somehow spontaneously signed myself up to live-tweeting the whole thing, which you can follow up on my Twitter. I'll be in to process of writing up a proper blogpost for the class, which I will subsequently share on here later on I'm sure!
Now when I said Soapbox presentations, I really mean we had a soapbox, which we brought right into the galleries on Thursday evening to present to our class (and the public) our interpretations and research on the objects on display. Amongst the objects chosen by other groups were a 1992 'My First Sony', an East India Company print, and a lacquer 'Sainsbury's Organic Mango x 4' tray. Nobody else really joined us (it was quite late and almost closing time), but we had a lot of fun, and we all felt quite refreshed to be able to work on something non-European (at last!).
