Exhibit Symposium | Yosooi no atae: Fashion & Vernacular Photography in 20th Century Japan
Curators Ayaka Iida of the Japan Society of New York and Dr. Lucile Druet of Kansai Gaidai University in Japan will be featured speakers at a symposium for the exhibition Yosooi no atae: Fashion and Vernacular Photography in 20th Century Japan on display at the Thorne Sagendorph Art Gallery through December 2023. The exhibit explores fashion and everyday life in Japan through found photographs: snapshots, studio portraits, family albums.
The event is being generously sponsored by the Global Education & Citizenship Speakers grant and by the Class of 1939 Fund.
Following the symposium, the curators will be giving special tours of the exhibition at the Thorne Gallery.
Bios of Curators
Ayaka Sano Iida is a fashion historian and curator specializing in fashion, textiles, and material culture. Adopting interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approaches, her research focuses on the intersections between Japanese and Euro-American dress practices and histories. She currently serves as Assistant Curator at Japan Society and has previously contributed to exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, Asia Society Museum, among others. Iida holds an M.A. in costume history from New York University and a BA from the School of International Liberal Studies at Waseda University.
Lucile Druet works as an associate professor of Japanese Art at Kansai Gaidai University (Hirakata, Osaka) after receiving her Ph.D. in Visual Arts from Jean Monnet University (Saint-Etienne, France). Her research and teaching include literature, painting traditions, dance, theatrical performances, film, photographic / journalistic media as well as Japanese costumes and fashion trends, with a focus on kimono. She is particularly interested in the intersection of dress and dressing, clothing and embodiment, currently developing projects on how kimono is practiced in real life (particularly tourists renting kimono in Kyōto as well as Maiko and Geiko communities) and how it is elaborated in works of fiction and poetry (specifically Tanizaki Jun'ichiro, Yosano Akiko, Ariyoshi Sawako and Hayashi Mariko).
To request accommodations for a disability, please contact the coordinator at least two weeks prior to the event.
