Mr. Kanki giving his lecture |
On 3 September, the JSPS Alumni Club in Finland held its annual
meeting and a seminar on “bathing culture,” venued on the Krapi
estate in the culturally rich Finnish municipality of Tuusula.
At the annual meeting, an overview was provided of the Club’s
FY2010 activities, new members were recognized, and a discussion
was held toward planning the Club’s next fiscal year’s activities. In
the following seminar, Mr. Shinji Kanki, a Japanese artist who
resides in Helsinki, gave a lecture on Japan’s bathhouse (sento)
culture and its influence on art and music. JSPS alumnus, Dr.
Tapani Jussila gave another lecture on Japan’s spa (onsen) culture
from a Finnish perspective, in which he compared it with Finland’s
sauna culture. After them, Mr. Mika Mäkelä talked about his experiences
as an exchange student at Hokkaido University, showing
many pictures of his host lab and colleagues in Japan.
As part of the seminar, an excursion was made to Halosenniemi
museum, which, now open to the public, was once the home and
studio of the renowned Finnish painter Pekka Halonen (1865-1933).
While there, Dr. Hanna Johansson delivered a lecture in which she
interpreted Halonen’s paintings and landscapes together with works
of Japanese artists. As many of the participants were well versed in
the arts, the lecture evoked a lively discussion. The seminar concluded
with an exercise in “skinship”: a trip to the sauna gave the
Japanese and Finnish participants an opportunity to enrich their
friendship ties.
― JSPS Stockholm Office
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