Kwaidan—Encounters with Lafcadio Hearn is an exhibition of prints by 20 Japanese and 20 Irish-based artists consisting of a sumptuous array of visual interpretations of Kwaidan, the well-known book of ghost stories published in 1904 by Patrick Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904), also known as Koizumi Yakumo.

Artists from Ireland
Yoko Akino / Ailbhe Barrett / Nuala Clarke / Niamh Flanagan / Richard Gorman / Richard Lawlor / Stephen Lawlor / Sharon Lee / Kate MacDonagh / Alice Maher / Eimearjean McCormack / James McCreary / Ed Miliano / Niall Naessens / Kelvin Mann / David Quinn / Barbara Rae / Robert Russell / Amelia Stein / Dominic Turner

Artists from Japan
Kanami Hano / Yoko Hara / Jin Hirosawa / Aya Ito / O JUN / Mayumi Kimura / Chie Matsui / Seiichiro Miida / Yuuka Miyajima / Shoji Miyamoto / Junko Ogawa / Shoko Osugi / Yuki Saito / Michael Schneider / Sudi / Azusa Takahashi / Yo Takahashi / Kanako Watanabe / Toshiya Watanabe / Katsutoshi Yuasa

In 2017, Irish artist Stephen Lawlor brought an exhibition of works to Tokyo based on the poetry of W.B. Yeats. It was here that he first heard of the writer, translator and teacher Lafcadio Hearn. Together with fellow artists Kate MacDonagh and Ed Miliano they formed a working group and began to develop an exhibition inspired by the writings of Hearn.

Ireland is traditionally famous for storytelling, which is deeply reflected in the country’s folklore and culture. Through his early life in Ireland, Lafcadio Hearn absorbed the tradition of storytelling, honed his skills as a young writer in the United States and subsequently wrote his best known works in Japan.

Through the mediums of contemporary printmaking and photography, each of the 40 artists has engaged with a story from Hearn’s masterpiece Kwaidan. The result is a striking variety of skill and haunting interpretation that reflects upon these strange and ghostly tales.

There are several images of ‘Mujina’, with her sad, featureless face awaiting the unwary passers-by on a lonely slope by the Akasaka Road. Alice Maher’s portrayal of ‘Rokuro-kubi’ confronts both the terror and humour of the five floating Goblin heads, their intertwined hair representing the forest in which they dwell, creating “a great knot of evil intent’’.

As described in ‘Jiu-roku-zakura’, Katsutoshi Yuasa is relieved to know that “such an equilibrium existed in the world” between death and the beauty of the cherry blossom in full bloom. Miyamoto Shoji was deeply affected by the loneliness of Hōïchi, as described in ‘The Story of Mimi-nashi-Hōïchi’.

Some of these tales are ancient, some just local folklore, but Hearn has woven them into a language that can joyously be translated into visual form.

The objective of this Kwaidan exhibition is to draw more serious attention to Lafcadio Hearn in Ireland and to elevate his work more fully into the pantheon of great Irish writing, where his extraordinarily powerful fiction, non-fiction and journalism so justly deserves to be. Through an extensive touring schedule in Japan and Ireland, the exhibition will also bring the two countries into closer cultural contact and will build on the aspirations set out in ‘Taking Forward Partnership with Shared Ambition’, the Joint Statement between the Governments of Ireland and Japan that was issued in June of 2022.

Media & Press / メディアとプレス