World Forum on Japanese Culture Set to Kick Off; 1st Session to Feature Speech by Princess Akiko

The Yomiuri Shimbun

14:07 JST, May 23, 2025

The World Forum on Japanese Culture is set to kick off at the MOA Museum of Art in Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture, on May 31.

The number of applications from people wishing to attend the inaugural day has already reached the venue’s seating capacity. However, recordings from the day will be viewable on the museum’s website and other places at a later date.

The Cultural Affairs Agency and other entities established the forum to convey to the world the distinctive characteristics of Japanese culture. Among those characteristics is the value that Japanese culture places on finding harmony between nature and human society, which will feature in the forum amid the divisions and conflicts currently faced by the international community.

Leading figures in traditional arts, traditional crafts, fine arts, science and other fields have been invited to speak, providing a variety of perspectives on Japanese culture. Their lectures and discussions will be open to the public and recorded, and the recordings will be made public with multilingual subtitles included.

The forum is also expected to cooperate with overseas universities and museums to enable the recordings to be used in classes at those institutions.

In the first session on the day, Princess Akiko of Mikasa will give a special lecture titled “The essence of Japanese aesthetics.” In the second session, a discussion will be held with four participants: Masatomo Kawai, a professor emeritus at Keio University; Kazumi Murose, a lacquer artist designated as a living national treasure; Harvard University Prof. Yukio Lippit; and Tokugo Uchida, director of the MOA Museum of Art. Both sessions will be recorded.