EXHIBITION REPORT
HIROSHI NAGAI
PAINTINGS FOR MUSIC September 25, 2020–January 23, 2021
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CONTENTS
EXHIBITION OVERVIEW ONLINE CATALOGUE PUBLIC PROGRAMS AUDIENCE & COMMENTS MARKETING MATERIALS MEDIA COVERAGE SPONSORS
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EXHIBITION OVERVIEW Hiroshi Nagai: Paintings for Music surveyed the relationship between Japan’s city pop music and the paintings of esteemed illustrator Hiroshi Nagai. Held at The Japan Foundation Gallery from September 25, 2020 to January 23, 2021, it was the first international solo exhibition of Nagai, whose cover art for Eiichi Ohtaki’s A Long Vacation and numerous other iconic record jackets spearheaded Japan’s city pop music culture. The exhibition explored an era that encapsulated the new young urban lifestyle in Tokyo through the lens of Nagai’s paintings. His dreamy visual palette and associated city pop hits epitomised the cultural reverberations of Japan’s economic boom, providing a soundtrack and aesthetic for young urbanites lusting after endless summers by the poolside and an indulgent city nightlife. On display were 20 of the illustrator’s original works spanning his career, as well as a collection of record jackets made for a variety of music styles from Japan and around the world, including soul, funk, pop, reggae, boogie and more.
ORGANISED BY The Japan Foundation, Sydney Yurika Sugie, Simonne Goran, Susan Bui, Anne Lee, Aurora Newton
IN COLLABORATION WITH FMCD Gallery Studio
SUPPORTED BY Light in the Attic Records Asahi Premium Beverages CHOYA UMESHU CO., LTD.
Harvest Index
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Hiroshi Nagai Eleki on the Beach Ventures Medley, 1984
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Hiroshi Nagai Uptown Sunset, 2013
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Hiroshi Nagai Downtown Sunset - Poolside Red Flower, 2006
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Hiroshi Nagai Uptown Poolside - Architecture, 2000s
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Hiroshi Nagai Reimen de Koiwoshite, 2001
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Hiroshi Nagai Brighter, 2015
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ONLINE CATALOGUE
CATALOGUE
AUTHORS
PUBLISHED BY
EDITORS
PUBLISHED ON December 5, 2020 68 pages
TRANSLATION
Texts comissioned by The Japan Foundation, Sydney on the occasion of the Hiroshi Nagai: Paintings for Music exhibition The Japan Foundation, Sydney
Toshiyuki Ohwada Hirofumi Mizukawa Mark "Frosty" McNeill Yurika Sugie and Simonne Goran Alexander Brown COPYEDITING
CONTENTS
Foreword Introduction A Message from Hiroshi Nagai City Pop’s America by Toshiyuki Ohwada
How Did City Pop Picture the City? On Phantom and Reality by Hirofumi Mizukawa
City Pop—A Return to Pleasure by Mark “Frosty” McNeill
Gallery Installation Paintings List of Works Biographies Credits
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Nina Serova DESIGN
Daryl Prondoso EXHIBITION PHOTOGRAPHY
Document Photography
ARTWORK PHOTOGRAPHY
Hiroshi Nagai Except pages 38, 46, 50, 52, 56: Document Photography
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W E A C K N OW L E D G E T HE GA D I GA L P E O P L E O F T HE E O RA N A T I O N , T HE T RA D I T I O N A L C U S T O D I A N S O F T H E L A N D O N W HI C H T HE JA PA N FO U N DA T I O N , S Y D N E Y N OW S TA N D S . W E PA Y O U R RE S P E C T S T O E L D E RS PA S T, P RE S E N T A N D E M E RG I N G .
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Foreword
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Introduction
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A Message from Hiroshi Nagai
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City Pop’s America
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How Did City Pop Picture the City?
by Toshiyuki Ohwada
On Phantom and Reality by Hirofumi Mizukawa 21
City Pop—A Return to Pleasure by Mark “Frosty” McNeill
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Gallery Installation
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Paintings
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List of Works
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Biographies
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Credits
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A MESSAGE FROM HIROSHI NAGAI アーティストメッセージ
For my first overseas show here in Sydney, Australia I have made a special selection spanning my career as an illustrator from the end of the 1970s through to my most recent work. Recently, the music and culture of Japanese artists who were deeply influenced by AOR and West Coast Rock has been getting attention as ‘city pop’. As this style grows in popularity internationally, it is being imported back into Japan, and as an artist who has been associated with it since the beginning, I have been getting support from overseas fans on Twitter and Instagram. I find myself bemused but at the same time intrigued by the fact that, without meaning to, I can collaborate with creators who are two generations younger than myself.
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‘Plastic Love’ stood at an eye-popping 40,379,094 and counting. While far from a hit when originally released, Takeuchi’s infectious, saccharine jam has since served an oversized role in the popularisation of city pop. It has also helped spawn contemporary genre tributaries such as vaporwave and future funk, which incessantly scrub the song’s anatomy in order to create new clones from its DNA. ‘Plastic Love’ is only part of the city pop story though, and a consideration of the full genre is a slippery exercise. Like most music classifications, city pop is a critical and economic construct attempting to fence in a more fluid aural landscape. To gain a wider understanding of this genre, it’s best to run headfirst into the facade of hermetic cyberspace and open up the scope through real world listening. Up a narrow staircase off a sleepy street in Tokyo’s Kōenji neighborhood, there’s a record bar named Grass Roots. Feeling more like a clubhouse than an official establishment, it’s a few square meters of eager ears smooshed closely together. The tiny room resembles a Jamaican beach shack that has been blasted into orbit by the power of its hi-fi stereo boosters. Grass Roots is a gathering place for DJs and musicians seeking the outer realms—a braintrust that’s a bonafide breeding ground for the next wave of emergent music. On one particular night in 2013, I stood in the cozy room as musician Shintaro Sakamoto was DJing. The former Yura Yura Teikoku frontman had recently released his debut solo album How to Live with a Phantom and its spectral compositions had struck a chord with me. His gauzy revisitations of ‘70s and ‘80s Japanese pop aesthetics were shrouded in a mist of his own invention. On this night, Sakamoto tossed on platter
after platter of Japanese heat and had everyone’s heads swaying in magnetic unison. It was at this moment that I knew city pop was destined to reach the wider population, its fate sealed by the firstwave whisperers assembled in the room. These tastemakers would scatter the seeds that would eventually grow into the millions of listeners now scanning YouTube for tracks that hit their pleasure centers, in the way Takeuchi’s famed single did. In 2018, I hosted a public conversation with Kunihiko Murai, founder of the legendary Japanese record label Alfa Music, which is home to Yellow Magic Orchestra, amongst others. During our chat he dropped this jewel: “I believe in the theory that everything starts from the avant-garde. If it’s for everybody that’s for nobody. If it’s for you, it’s the real thing.” The notion that the underground largely informs the mainstream as opposed to the inverse, resonates with me. Bright minds operating outside of the spotlight are the vanguard that eventually imprint wider culture. City pop reached a level of mainstream status during its original era largely due to the boundless minds who built its foundation. Japan’s prosperous bubble economy of the 1970s and 1980s created the conditions that allowed for an environment of experimentation. State of the art studios stocked with the latest electronic instruments helped drive audio advances while plentiful funding allowed artists to make music outside of normal channels. Bespoke soundtracks were commissioned to accompany everything from air conditioners to architecture to perfume. This environmental view of audio bred an exploratory mentality and none took it further than Yellow Magic Orchestra’s Haruomi Hosono. His works foresaw
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future sound-art movements and helped evolve the form of Japanese pop itself. Hosono’s innovative framework emphasised lyrical Japanese tonguetwisting and a reversal of Oriental exoticisation through witty satire, while his sonic architecture was informed by a multi-culti stew of sounds. Looking to Los Angeles for some seasoning, Hosono’s band Happy End sought out composer/arranger/lyricist Van Dyke Parks and the band Little Feat to give their music that ‘Burbank sound’. While that moniker might have existed solely in the minds of Hosono and his crew, the energy they sought was a real commodity made by artists brewing a distinctly West Coast sound—psychedelia-laced earthy elegance that catapulted rock music into imaginative realms. Many other city pop artists would follow suit and engage collaborators in palm-shaded Los Angeles studios. The desire to beam beyond oneself is a natural instinct. Even if life is delightful, fantasising can always make it better, and in the midst of Japan’s miraculous bubble economy, creative minds often gazed across the ocean to pursue idyllic essences from distant shores. Hiroshi Nagai’s art embodies this escapism. His works are hazy California daydreams suspended in paint. It’s a style perfectly suited for the city pop sound and his designs adorn some of the genre’s preeminent titles, including Eiichi Ohtaki’s A Long Vacation. Nagai’s art completes a circle of sound and vision that, when absorbed as a full package, is intoxicating. If you drop the needle on the right song, you can lean into Nagai’s artwork and tumble into its bucolic embrace—where palm trees sway in the warm breeze to smooth sounds floating from open-topped convertibles. City pop seems to
embody the transcendent sense of nostalgia that the Japanese call natsukashii. It opens a portal to brighter possibilities, like awakening with the memory of a delightful dream still sitting on the edge of your subconscious. I think this is one of the greatest drivers for the music’s current resurgence. In a world gripped by a pandemic and mired in sociopolitical chaos, city pop transports us to better times and imbues us with the impermeable optimism to push on through to paradise.
Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai, album cover of Pacific Breeze: Japanese City Pop, AOR & Boogie 1976-1986, courtesy of Light in The Attic
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GALLERY INSTALL ATION ギャラリー 25
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Left: 7 Poolside - Yellow Towel, 1990s
Above: 8 Time Goes By..., 2008
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LIST OF WORKS リスト・オブ・ワークス VINYL 21
Various Artists Light Mellow Sealine 2017 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Sea Boys Eleki On The Beach Ventures Medley 1982 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Onra Nobody Has To Know 2018 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Naoya Matsuoka and Wesing The Wind Whispers 1982 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Air Supply Strangers in Love 1980 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Niagara Fall of Sound Orchestral Niagara Song Book 1982 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Sunny Day Service Dance To You 2016 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Naoya Matsuoka and Wesing Majorca 1982 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Various Artists Breeze - AOR Best Selection 2002 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Pictured Resort Southern Freeway 2017 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Various artists The Twist (The Best of Oldies But Goodies) 1977 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Naoya Matsuoka and Wesing The Show 1982 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Various Artists Hawaiian Dream (soundtrack) 1987 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Anders & Poncia Anders ‘N’ Poncia Rarities 1988 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Kay Ishiguro Purple Road 1983 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Naoya Matsuoka and Wesing Son 1982 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Ikkubaru Brighter 2017 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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AAA No Way Back 2017 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Max Romeo Loving You 1983 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Sing Like Talking Reveal (Sing Like Talking On Vinyl Vol.1) 2000 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Various Artists Battle of Groups Vol.1 1977 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Eiichi Ohtaki A Long Vacation 1981 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Air Supply The Whole Thing’s Started 1980 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Hiroshi II Hiroshi Hiroshi II Hiroshi Vol. 1 1993 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Various Artists Battle of Groups Vol.2 1977 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Various Artists Pacific Breeze: Japanese City Pop, AOR & Boogie 1976-1986 2019 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Boo Smile In Your Face 2002 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Bronze East Shore 2019 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Various Artists Pacific Breeze 2: Japanese City Pop, AOR & Boogie 1972-1986 2020 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
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Naoya Matsuoka and Wesing September Wind 1982 Artwork by Hiroshi Nagai
The vinyl display will be rotated throughout the duration of the exhibition. Sept 25, 2020 - Nov 25, 2020 Nov 26, 2020 - Jan 23, 2021
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PAINTIN GS FOR MUSIC: SOUNDTRAC K
サウンドトラック
Playlist available on Spotify during the exhibition period 60
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PUBLIC PROGRAM City Pop: Inspired Nostalgia
NIGHT TEMPO LIVESTREAM DJ SET BRINGING RETRO CULTURE TO YOU! November 12, 2020 6:00pm–8:00pm AEDT VENUE
Zoom | Admission Free Viewers joined in a 2-hour exclusive livestream DJ set with South Korean producer Night Tempo featuring lesser-known city pop tracks. Night Tempo’s 2019 album, 夜韻 Night Tempo, features original cover art by Hiroshi Nagai. ABOUT NIGHT TEMPO
Jung Kyung-ho, who goes by the name of Night Tempo, has been creating music since 2015. Describing his music as future funk, a subgenre of vaporwave, Night Tempo samples 1970 and 80s Japanese music from cassettes with the desire to evoke warm fuzzy feelings of nostalgia. His love for 1980s retro culture, especially Japanese city pop, has helped propel the genre into the contemporary music landscape. One of his most notable contributions to the recent resurgence of city pop is his 2016 remaster of Mariya Takeuchi’s Plastic Love which, to this day, has over 40 million views on YouTube.
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ONLINE CATALOGUE LAUNCH & TALK EVENT December 5, 2020
11:00am–12:00pm AEDT VENUE
Facebook Live | Admission Free SPEAKERS
Toshiyuki Ohwada (Professor, Harvard-Yenching Institute) Mark McNeill (Founder, dublab) To celebrate the launch of the Hiroshi Nagai: Paintings for Music Online Catalogue, viewers gained insight on the city pop music genre from this talk between contributors of the catalogue Toshiyuki Ohwada and Mark ‘Frosty’ McNeill. Professor Ohwada shed light on the influence of American music on the city pop genre, and Mark “Frosty” McNeill shared his curatorial experience of putting together the two Pacific Breeze compilations featured in the Hiroshi Nagai: Paintings for Music exhibition. The two contributors also discussed Hiroshi Nagai’s connection to city pop and the genre’s recent surge in international popularity. After the 45 minute interview, there was a 15 minute audience Q&A. The talk was conducted via Facebook livestream on the JPF Sydney Facebook, and a recording of the livestream was made available for viewing on the event page and Youtube afterwards.
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CITY POP: INSPIRED NOSTALGIA FILM SCREENINGS
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NO SMOKING (NO SMOKING) October 21, 2020 6:30pm–8:06pm
Palace Cinemas Central Admission Free
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OCEAN WAVES (海がきこえる) November 18, 2020 6:30pm–7:42pm
Palace Cinemas Central Admission Free
MIRAI (未来のミライ) December 19, 2020 11:00am–12:38pm
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Palace Cinemas Central Admission Free
AUDIENCE TOTAL GALLERY VISITORS
4‚288
DID THIS EVENT DEEPEN YOUR INTEREST IN JAPAN? (EXHIBITION)
SATISFACTION RESULTS (EXHIBITION)
80%
TOTAL CATALOGUE VIEWS (AS OF FEB 1, 2021)
100% Very Satisfied!
3 Ye s, ve 4 ry m uc h 5–
1–
1‚443
0% 0% 0%
2
TOTAL PUBLIC PROGRAM ATTENDEES
20%
N o, no ta ta ll
6‚503
COMMENTS HIROSHI NAGAI EXHIBITION
“Fantastic exhibition—well curated”
ONLINE CATALOGUE LAUNCH & TALK EVENT
“This was a very special experience. Thanks for bringing Hiroshi Nagai’s artwork over to Sydney”
“Wonderful exhibit, as I've come to expect from JPF”
“Wonderful talk - listening in from Los Angeles!”
“Excellent space, very well organised.” “Very good and detailed booklet for the exhibition and it is convenient and easy to access it :)” “Loved the music playing in the background during the exhibition and the QR code to view additional content and resources as well as the Spotify playlist” “I love the hiroshi nagai exhibition thank you for bringing it to Sydney” “It was excellent!”
“amazing” NIGHT TEMPO LIVESTREAM DJ SET
“It was so good! Please do more.” “Super awesome event. Night Tempo was really interactive and the tunes were great. More DJ/Music events in future!” “Love it! Thank you so much for hosting! Would love to hear more from creators in the Japanese music and art scene :)”
FILM SCREENINGS
“I found out about the film from my partner, and he found out through the Paintings for Music exhibition advertising. We are excited to go to the exhibition as well. Thank you!!” “Do it again, love it” “Thanks sim that was fun and interesting !! Mb x” “We loved it! A hidden gem from ghibli!” “Thank you very much for organising this event.” 19
DIGITAL MARKETING MATERIALS
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MEDIA COVERAGE HIGHLIGHTS
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The first international solo exhibition of esteemed illustrator Hiroshi Nagai is ON NOW at The Japan Foundation, Sydney! "Hiroshi Nagai: Paintings for Music" surveys the relationship between Nagai’s work and the city pop music genre through 20 original works from the 1980s to present, along with a collection of record jackets.
With the re-emergence of city pop in the 2010s, the work of Hiroshi Nagai has received renewed attention. Learn more including about the related Inspired Nostalgia events online:
www.jpf.org.au/events/hiroshi-nagai-paintingsfor-music/ Listen to a city-pop playlist curated by Japan Foundation Sydney at https://open.spotify.com/ playlist/43q6oU1vV7rwWxj1zwUcWw
The Japanese Film Festival is going online for 2020 with a 100% free selection of films streaming in Australia and New Zealand from 4-13 December. The Japanese Film Festival Australia (JFF) is now one of the largest celebrations of Japanese films in the world. Last year, the Festival’s 23rd year, the JFF audience was more than 30,000 Australia-wide. JFF Plus will continue the Festival’s practice of presenting newly released titles. And JFF Classics, a program of rare 35mm and 16mm films screening for free with partners returns to JFF 2020—in Sydney at the Art Gallery of NSW. Sign up to the JFF newsletter to be the first to know the latest JFF Plus news! www.japanesefilmfestival.net/newsletter/
LIVE AND WORK IN JAPAN! Applications are OPEN NOW for the 2021 Japan Exchange & Teaching (JET) Programme Download the application pack from the Embassy of Japan in Canberra’s website: www.au.emb-japan.go.jp/itpr_en/ education_jet_en.html All entries MUST arrive to the Embassy in Canberra by post BY THE DEADLINE Contact cginfo@sy.mofa.go.jp to learn more!
eE siP x ORTS JapapnagR
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SPONSORS Our sponsors offer invaluable support to The Japan Foundation, Sydney programming and fostering cultural exchange between Japan and Australia. We believe in tailored partnerships that meet the needs of each organisation, resulting in meaningful collaborations. To this end, the Hiroshi Nagai: Paintings for Music exhibition included event activations*, prize giveaways and more.
LIGHT IN THE ATTIC RECORDS An American record label that has produced records featuring Japanese city pop music, resulting in a valuable partnership for the exhibition. They provided the exhibition with two vinyls (Pacific Breeze: Japanese City Pop, AOR & Boogie 1976–1986 and Pacific Breeze 2: City Pop, AOR & Boogie 1972–1986) with designs painted by Hiroshi Nagai to put on display, and Mark ‘Frosty’ McNiell, the co-curator and producer of the featured vinyls contributed to the exhibition catalogue and was a guest speaker at the catalogue launch event. Additional promotional materials were provided for a giveaway in the monthly J-Central newsletter to create buzz for the catalogue launch event. HARVEST INDEX This Melbourne-based tea company provided tea that unfortunately could not be served at any events, but was offered instead to the first 150 attendees of the exhibition. ASAHI PREMIUM BEVERAGES & CHOYA UMESHU CO., LTD. Ongoing beverage sponsors of The Japan Foundation, Sydney. While Asahi and CHOYA beverages are usually served at in-person events corresponding to the sponsored exhibition, due to COVID-19 no drinks were able to be served. Their logos featured on all exhibition and public program collateral. *cancelled due to COVID-19
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