Conversation Piece: Techno-Orientalism - what's wrong with our view of Japan?

A woman in a kimono next to an air cab, neon signs with kanji characters in cyberpunk role-playing games, human-like robots... How we see Japan and the Japanese is influenced by representations in the Western media. In fact, these images are often an expression of a rather questionable mindset that allows people of the Occident to find ever new reasons for their sense of superiority. Together with Japan scholar Volker Elis, Chair of Japanese Studies at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Mio Wakita-Elis, Curator MAK Collection Asia, will talk about the Western view of Japan and the phenomenon of Techno-Orientalism.

Tue, 5.9.2023 7 pm — 8.30 pm

MAK – Museum of Applied Arts

Registration closed

Lacquer pattern as folding screen in fan form

The Conversation Piece for the talk will be the lacquer pattern panels as a folding screen in the shape of a fan by Hashimoto Ichizō. Many stories from Japan and the Vienna World's Fair converge in the object; it obscures the view and presents itself from two sides. As part of the exhibition The 1873 Vienna World’s Fair Revisited: Egypt and Japan as Europe’s “Orient”.

We need to talk! In the art education format Conversation Pieces we will speak with artists, activists, scientists, and personalities from various fields about select objects from the MAK Collection. Conversation Pieces is dedicated to themes like diversity, feminism, participation or loneliness, symbiotic bodies, racism in collections, planet care, and much more. We use the MAK as a polyphonic place for the exchange of ideas and to engage in various sociopolitical discourses and problems that enable new perspectives on an extraordinary collection. Conversation Pieces can be understood as an impetus to make widespread pictorial worlds and narratives visible and to critically question them by talking about them together.

We kindly ask you to arrive at least 20 minutes before the event begins.

In addition to the event fee, a museum ticket (admission ticket, MAK Annual Pass, Kulturpass, etc.) is required to attend the event. Participation fee: € 10 (excl. admission to the museum).

Buy tickets here / Register above / Tickets available at ticket desk from 6 p.m. on day of the event