Media - Museum Exhibitions | Hokkaido University Global COE Program

Museum Exhibitions

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The Global COE Program ‘Reshaping Japan’s Border Studies: Slavic Eurasia and the World’ presents the fruits of research from a variety of perspectives on the Slavic Eurasian region at the Hokkaido University Museum.

Seen from Hokkaido, the Kuril Islands and Kamchatka Peninsula were seen as a far-off land shut away behind the Iron Curtain, but how did they
appear to Russian and Soviet eyes?
Kunashiri and Shikotan Islands have been visited by artists from Sakhalin, Vladivostok and Moscow since the mid-1960s.The distinctive volcanoes and beautiful bays, the canning factory and its laborers, such sights became motifs for these artists.The borderland was drawn into existence on numerous paintings and created a new Soviet and Russian landscape.
On the other hand, the Kamchatka peninsula, declareda UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site in 1996, has been blessed with a ‘rich and untouched nature’ of dramatic landscapes, varied flora and fauna, hot springs, volcanoes, and Arctic forests, and is becoming a crucial region of research for scientists.Being at the Far Eastern end of Russia, it is not a place that received much attention until recently but, rich in mineral and energy, maritime and forestry resources and possessing considerable tourist potential, it has recently started exciting great interest from many countries.

Through this exhibition, it is hoped that the past, present and futures of the ‘near, yet far’ Kamchatka and Kurils should become clearer, and thinking about border issues stimulated.

Activities of the ‘Shikotan Group’
Since Soviet times, the islands of Shikotan and Kunashiri have attracted the attentions of a number of artists, of which the ‘Shikotan Group’, hailing from either Moscow or the Maritime Provinces (Vladivostok and Ussuriysk), are particularly celebrated. In the mid-1960’s, the Moscow-born Oleg Loshakov arrived by chance on Shikotan Island, and was captivated by its beauty. He returned to the island every year with groups of his artist friends from Moscow and his students from Vladivostok. They brought the borderland to life in their paintings, characterized by motifs like the distinct shape of Chachadake (on Kunashiri) across the calm waters of Shakotan Bay on Shikotan, or the laborers at the canning factory.

Itinerant Artists on Sakhalin
The island of Sakhalin, originally inhabited by a number of indigenous groups, is today an amalgam of peoples from different regions of the Soviet Union and a large population of Korean descent. Artists of Sakhalin, while not being members of the Shikotan Group , did travel to the Kurils and produce landscape scenes. Being migrants to the region, rather than with strictly accurate depictions of nature and the landscape, their studies were infused with the question of whether this strange borderland could be called home. The landscapes they conjured up on canvas were not mere reflections of the scene in front of them, but took on the quality of ‘imagined’ landscapes. The region became an inhabitable one through the superimposition of ‘their’ landscapes atop the land itself.

If one stands at Cape Shiretoko or Cape Nosappu and looks north, one can see the arc of the Kuril Islands curving up towards Kamchatka, blessed with its Arctic Forests, Volcanos, Onsens and varied flora and fauna. While a northeastern extension of the Japanese archipelago, for historical and political reasons, the region is a ‘near, yet distant’ one when viewed from Japan.
The exhibition will focus on the nature and lifestyles of people on Kamchatka and the Kurils, introducing the present and future of a region rich in untapped resources and the promise of future development, one relatively unknown to Japanese audiences.

Past Exhibitions

■ 1st Museum Exhibition "Journey through the Eurasian Borders"(2009/10/3-12/8)

■ 2nd Exhibition"Unknown Borders of the Northern Borders"(2009/12/18-2010/5/10)

■ 3rd Exhibition "Sea Front of Eurasia: Southwestern Borders of Japan" Part 1 (2010/05/14～9/11)

■ 3rd Exhibition Part 2

■ 4th Exhibition "Indigenous Peoples and Borders" (2010/11/19～2011/2/13)

■ 5th Exhibition "Language Crossing Borders: The worlds and writings of Russian and Eastern European Authors" Part1 (2011/05/13～11/20)

■ 6th Exhibition "China seen from across the border" (2011/11/1～2012/5/13)