graduate school directory 2011/12 - Camberwell College of Arts ...

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KIKUCHI Yuko
READER
BiOgrAPhY Dr Yuko Kikuchi was born in Tokyo
and educated in Japan, the USA and UK.
After completing a BA in English and American
Litera ture and an MA in American Studies,
she worked at the School of East Asian Studies,
Uni versity of Sheffield as a Modern Japanese
Studies specialist. She joined University of the Arts
London in 1994 to complete a PhD on the
Mingei movement and is currently teaching MA
courses, supervising research students and
conducting research as a core member of TrAIN
(Transnational Art Identity and Nation) in
her capacity as a specialist in design histories and
design studies.
rESEArCh StAtEMENt My research is on modernities
in art and design in East Asia, with
particular interest in how phenomena informed
by local specificities could engage with aca-
demia in Euroamerica. My key publications have
been on the Japanese and transnational
Mingei movement (Japanese Modernisation and
Mingei Theory: Cultural Nationalism and Oriental
Orientalism, 2004), and on modernities in
colonial Taiwan (Refracted Modernity: Visual Culture
and Identity in Colonial Taiwan, 2007). The
latter developed through the international design
history project, ‘“Oriental” Modernity: Modern
Design Development in East Asia, 1920–90’,
which investigated the regional and inter-regional
development of modern design in Japan, Korea,
and China/Taiwan/Hong Kong. As an editorial
board member of the Journal of Design History,
I am passionate about creating a transnational
frame work for design histories and studies.
Recently, I have expanded my scope to South-
East Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand)
through my investigation into American design
inter vention in Asia during the Cold War
period, looking particularly at the case of Russel
Wright. This research examines the continuity
from the European colonial construc tion of
‘vernacular/national’ handicrafts in the pre-WWII
period, to the post-war American intervention
which eventually developed into the contemporary
subjectivity of the locals.
SELECtED OUtPUtS AND AChiEVEMENtS
2011 ‘Visualising Oriental Crafts: Contested Notion of
“Japaneseness” and the Crafts of the Japanese Empire’,
in: Inaga, S. (ed.), Question of Oriental Aesthetics and
Thinking, Kyoto: The International Research Center for
Japanese Studies.
2011 ‘American Consumption of Japanese Design and
Development of “Japanese Modern” during the
Occupation and Cold War’, in: Omuka, T. (ed.), Studies
on Audience and Reception of Art in Japan, Tokyo:
The Japanese Ministry of Education, Science, Sports,
Science & Technology KAKEN.
2010 ‘The Question of “Japaneseness” and the Creation of
the “Greater Oriental Design” for Crafts of the Japanese
Empire’, in: Archív Orientální (‘Oriental Archive’), special
issue of Literature, History and Culture of Taiwan: Past
and Present.
2008 ‘Russel Wright and Japan: Bridging Japonisme
and Good Design through Craft Design’, in: Journal of
Modern Craft.
KIKUCHI Yuko
Silverware made in Kompong Luong, Cambodia
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