This groundbreaking exhibition explores art and culture through the lens of women and their roles in Ainu communities, the Indigenous people of northern Japan. For centuries, non-Ainu visual culture depicted the Ainu people in prejudiced ways. Even today, women’s voices and roles within Ainu art have generally been marginalized and underrepresented in museum exhibitions.

The Ainu were officially recognized as the Indigenous peoples of Japan in 2008. This and the 2020 opening of the Upopoy National Ainu Museum and Park has contributed to a recent “Ainu boom.” Yet, the Ainu continue to face misrepresentation in the contemporary world, raising the question: who represents Ainu people and culture and on what terms?    

The exhibition presents contemporary Ainu art in dialogue with past representations by and of Ainu people from historical collections of seven North American museums with a specific focus on Ainu women–the first exhibition in the U.S. to foreground Ainu women’s voices. Through robust community-based art-making and programs on in-person and digital platforms, this exhibition seeks to connect the museum/university and Ainu communities.

Curators: Dr. Natsu Oyobe, Dr. Susan Dine, and Dr. Kanako Uzawa

Objects from the collection of the Brooklyn Museum and the Detroit Institute of Arts. Artwork © Shizue Ukaji and Kimiko Naraki