David Warren

Designs for living

We wound up the year-long campaign "UK-Japan 2008" last week, with a big event at the Embassy.   It was set up to celebrate 150 years since diplomatic relations were established between Britain and Japan, in the wake of Japan's opening up to the West in the years before the Meiji Restoration in 1868.  We started with 100 or so events, and ended up with over 330.   Of course, a lot were cultural in nature, and very successful and popular they were too - big art exhibitions, including a Turner Prize retrospective at Tokyo's new Mori Art Museum, the London Symphony Orchestra touring Japan, a marvellous V and A show linking William Morris with the Japanese Arts and Crafts movement.  But the emphasis was also on science, innovation and creativity - an exhibition on Darwin, lectures by British Nobel Prizewinners, avant-garde theatre, community projects in all areas of the arts. 

We had nearly 1000 bloggers taking part in the campaign, around 3000 articles over the year, and about 1000 people view each article, so the total number of people we're reaching must be well up into six figures, if not beyond   We gave prizes to the ten top blogs at the closing ceremony.  We also rewarded three projects in each of the areas that the campaign covered.  One was in the field of contemporary dance, and I had a fascinating conversation at the event with the head of the Japanese Contemporary Dance Network about dance in the community, and the work he does with people with disabilities.  I don't think I would have had quite the same exchange when I was last in Japan eleven years ago.  I ask whether this is an example of how Japan is changing - greater sensitivity towards some aspects of diversity.  He says yes, true - but there is still some way to go. 

Design is a major aspect of creativity, of course.   There are lots more British architects and designers working in Japan than when I was last here in the 90s. But how can we get the message across in Japan that Britain is a modern country, not a Victorian theme park?    Sir Terence Conran came into the Embassy to talk to a group of Japanese design specialists on Friday afternoon about what Britain has to offer.  He is one of UK Trade and Investment's new "Business Ambassadors" - senior business people who spend some of their time when travelling promoting Britain more generally.  It's fascinating to listen to his more than fifty years of experience of design for living.   His theme, of course, is partly the economic crisis, but also partly environmental.   People are more likely in the future to want the simple, the rational, the uncluttered.   Not the ornate, the baroque, the over-decorated. A return to austerity?   Or maybe just quality over quantity?

Posted at 15:18 10 March 2009 by David Warren  |  Comments[1]