Ayelet Zohar discusses the camel in Japanese art and visual culture, from early depictions from the Nara period to Edo era, until the first living pair arrived in Japan in 1821. The arrival of the giraffes created a boom of hundreds of misemono roadshows, as well as numerous images in paintings and prints. However, the most intriguing examples come from the 20th century, after Japan became a leading power in Asia. Camels became trophies, living symbols of Japan's military success on the mainland. They were displayed prominently in scientific zoological gardens, served as beasts of burden in tourist venues, and recruited by the Japanese military to carry its arsenal and supplies. Zohar then moves to discuss images of camels in the postwar period, where they were transformed into Buddhist messengers of peace and harmony, crossing the deserts of Central Asia in yet another imaginary projection of Japan's relations with Asia. The camel-whether as a mythical beast, a wartime trophy, or a beast of burden-is an ever shifting icon of attitudes toward Asia in the Japanese imagination.
ABOUT THE PRESENTER
ADr. Ayelet Zohar is a Senior Lecturer at the History of Art Department, Tel Aviv University. She received her PhD from the Slade School of Fine Art, Universty College London (UCL), University of London (2007), followed by a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Stanford Univesrity (2007-2009), and a second Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC (2011). In 2012 Dr. Zohar was a Research Fellow at Hokkaidô University, followed by two research periods at Waseda University in Tokyo (2017 and 2018). Dr. Zohar holds a research grant from the Israeli Science Foundation (ISF) for her research on war memory in contemporary Japanese photography and video art (2016-2019). Dr. Zohar was a Visiting Associate Professor at the History of Art Dept., Yale University (2018). Dr. Zohar is the recepient of the Ishibashi Foundation for Japanese Art History Research, 2019-2020.
Dr, Zohar's main fields of research are the history and theory of Japanese phorography; Contemporary fine art photography; Historical, Meiji era photography; Art and visual culture in Japan; Postcolonial theory; Deleuzian studies; Psychoanalysis and Trauma Studies.
Dr. Zohar has published extensively on issues of Japanese photography and contemporary art, war memory in Japanese photography, gender and sexuaity in contemporary Japanese art/ photography. Dr. Zohar alsoresearched questions of camouflage and photograpraphy, and has related to issues of Foucauldian, Deleuzian and Rancierian theories in this respect.
Dr. Zohar is a transdisciplinary artist and an independent curator. In 2005 she curated "PostGender: Gender, Sexuality and Performativity in Contemporary Japanese Art" exhibition (Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art, Haifa, 2005), "Two moon on the Shore and a Clockwork Bird in Norweigian Wood: Haruki Murakami and Contemporary Art," (Contemporary Art Gallery, Tel Aviv, 2014); and "Beyond Hiroshima: The Return of the Repressed" (Tel Aviv Universirty Art Gallery, Tel Aviv, 2015).
#wangcenter #longisland #stonybrook #stonybrookuniversity #spring #celebration #asianculture #japan #japaneseculture #Camel #colonialism #decolonialism #orientalism #misemono #sideshow #entertainment #tourism #mythicalanimals #cryptids #trophy #beastofburden #nara #edo #culturaldiffusion #middleeast #africa