Japan Interlink was founded by
Suzanne Perrin in 1995 in order to promote awareness of Japanese
culture abroad, creating cultural and educational exchange between
Japan and the UK by organising a wide range of Japanese events
including exhibitions of Kimono and craftworks, Japanese
traditional dance groups, setting up student exchange programmes
between universities in Japan and the UK, and providing
consultations, talks and lectures for business users, museum
courses, student and adult education groups.
Japan Interlink uses a network of
Japanese artists and performers who are all highly trained
professionals with many years experience in their chosen fields.
Demonstrations and displays can be arranged for special occasions,
private functions, or public performances for any size group. We
have contributed to many of the Japan Festival events that have
taken place in the UK over the last twenty years.
Suzanne Perrin studied Nihonga
traditional Japanese painting at Nagoya University of Arts in
Japan, and has worked extensively to bring many years experience
to promoting Japanese culture through lectures and events to a
wide public at all levels.
Suzanne has worked for Japanese
organisations in London and Japan, has promoted Japanese culture
on Sky TV, on radio for BBC's 'Women's Hour', and on local radio
stations in Australia, New Zealand, and Cape Town in South Africa
during lecture tours to those regions.
Suzanne contributes lectures and courses for
universities and museums in the UK including Asian Arts courses at
the British Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum, SOAS London
University, University of Brighton and University of Cape Town,
South Africa.
Suzanne has published many articles on
historical and contemporary aspects of Japanese architecture,
gardens, design and lifestyle for Insight Japan Magazine, Nichi-Ei
Times, The Japan Society Review, NADFAS Review, Odyssey Magazine
SA and other periodicals. She is currently working on
The Old Kyoto Shops
Project
The lectures cover a broad range of subjects
on Japanese and Chinese art, history and culture, and are suitable
for all levels of education from school age to graduate, adult and
business classes. Detailed knowledge is combined with top quality
visuals to provide stimulating sessions for small and large
groups.
Japan
Architecture: sacred and secular, historical and contemporary
Arts & Crafts: traditional crafts and contemporary practice
General History: cultural and social development
Gardens: design, style and symbolism
Tea Culture: philosophy and ceremony
Textiles: costume development and production
Religions: origins and practice
Contemporary Culture: society, lifestyle, women's issues
Japonism: Japanese influence on western art
China
Buddhism & the Silk Road
The Silk Road: past & present culture
Painting Traditions: Tang, Song & Ming art
The Scholar's Desk: connoisseurship and collecting
JAPANESE
GREENBUILD
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Save Target to download PDF file.
publications
JAPANESE
GARDENS
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publications
OLD KYOTO SHOPS
OLD KYOTO SHOPS:
The Disappearing Shops & Traders of Old Japan
PREVIEW BOOK by Suzanne Perrin & Akiko Nakamura
Suzanne Perrin and Akiko Nakamura have been conducting a survey on the traditional shops and traders of Kyoto since 2003, interviewing shop proprietors and workers, and assessing the status of their trades in a rapidly changing world. Surveys were conducted between 2003 and 2018.
Many small businesses are being forced to close for a variety of reasons, whether due to declining orders for traditional items, competition from overseas, technological changes to production, or an ageing population of craft workers with few apprentices willing to learn a demanding process.
The book covers an introduction to Kyoto, its craftspeople and licenced artisans, a compilation of statistics on the rate of declining small businesses in the Kyoto area, and focuses on different groups including textile workers, wood workers, metal workers, food suppliers, some ryokan and coffee houses, and general goods stores.
The surveys highlight the problems of economic growth versus the decline in crafts and traditional suppliers, analysing solutions and successes where businesses have survived and prospered, or problems and difficulties where businesses have closed. Included are interviews with successful businesses that actively promote traditional crafts and use their specialism in contemporary design.
We will be concluding our researches in 2019 with a view to publishing the completed book in due course. We aim to provide updates on the project via the Japan Interlink website and social media links. For info see: www.japaninterlink.com/kyotoshopsproject or www.oldkyotoshops.com
Suzanne Perrin B.A.; M.A.
Independent researcher, lecturer in Japanese history, art and culture for universities and museums; founded Japan Interlink in 1995, and published Bridges: Anglo-Japanese Cultural Pioneers 1945-2015 in 2016 available online at
http://www.fast-print.net/bookshop/1909/bridges
www.japaninterlink.com / info@japaninterlink.com
Akiko Nakamura
Professional artisan, fourth generation weaving expert in Nishijin textiles, founded Ever Koubo in 1999, a weaving workshop for teaching younger artisans; works with her son producing fashion design clothing and is a registered Kyoto guide and textile consultant.
kugayatsumugi@yahoo.co.jp
From left to
right
top row: Suzanne Perrin, Joji Hirota, Robert
Ketchell, Professor Toshio Watanabe, Setsuo Kato, Jeremy Hoare
bottom row: Junko Kobayashi, Phillida Purvis
MBE, Sir Hugh Cortazzi GCMG, Wiesia Cook Bownas, Professor Ian Nish
CBE
“This handsome book features interviews with ten prominent people involved in Anglo-Japanese exchange, showing the rich cultural diversity and interaction between professional people in the UK and Japan during the past 70 years. It has been most carefully compiled and makes for fascinating reading.”
I de S
“You and Jeremy continue to do amazing things with getting Bridges publicised. I sincerely hope that you use all the hard effort in creating this publication and publicity model on further work, because it is a terrific achievement.”
PP
“I found it a collection of fascinating chapters about the lives of those who one could call true pioneers in developing the valuable links between Japan and the UK. I have taken every spare moment to read it from the first word to the last ! “
JW
“Thank you and Jeremy for your hard work in preparing the volume and persistence in seeing it through. It has taught me a lot and I hope that it may appeal to a wide readership.”
IN
“I am certainly enjoying your book. Seeing those years through the eyes of other people is certainly giving me food for thought and many, many memories.”
MH
BRIDGES book
review in ACUMEN magazine for the BCCJ Tokyo - June 2016 by Ian de
Stains OBE
Books June 2016
A slice of social history Builders of bonds By Ian de Stains OBE
This handsome book features interviews with 10 prominent people
involved in Anglo–Japanese exchange, showing the rich cultural
diversity and interaction between professional people in the UK, the
rest of Europe and Japan during the past 70 years.
It has been most carefully compiled and makes for fascinating
reading, never once falling short on interest. The names of the
majority of those interviewed will be familiar to anyone associated
with Anglo–Japanese affairs, so there is a familiarity about
it, and yet there are a few surprises within its pages, too.
No such volume would be complete without a contribution from Sir
Hugh Cortazzi GCMG, one of the UK’s former ambassadors to
Japan. For once, instead of editing others’ contributions, he
speaks—and eloquently, too—of his own experience:
Click here to read the rest of the article
“I’m neither what you might call pro-Japanese nor
anti-Japanese. That doesn’t mean to say that I don’t
attach great importance to Japan; of course I do. I attach a great
deal of importance to people understanding what makes Japan what it
is today.
“But I think we mustn’t approach this in a racial, or a
nationalistic, or a prejudiced way. I’d like us to approach
Japan, and to see Japan as a key factor in the world, which it is,
to appreciate its good points and to see where there are problems.
But don’t let us ever do this in a way which is not at least
self-critical”.
In this regard, Cortazzi might well have been speaking for the
majority of the other contributors who, with one striking exception,
are the authors of their own pieces; it is their voices we hear.
The exception is that of the late Geoffrey Bownas CBE (1923–2011),
a Japanese linguist and scholar, to whose memory Bridges is
dedicated. The contribution made in his name comes from his widow
Wiesia Cook-Bownas. It is right that he has been included, for not
only was he one of the nicest men you could hope to meet, but his
contribution to the field of Anglo–Japanese relations was
immense.
He is remembered as a dedicated teacher who was much loved by his
students and as the man who put The University of Sheffield on the
map as a centre for excellence in Japanese studies. But there was so
much more to him: he was a poet, writer and translator who crossed
the line—apparently easily—into the world of business. As
Wiesia said:
“I think he fostered the knowledge of Japan in so many ways,
not just as a scholar, but also in the business context. He was a
person of many parts, and the importance of linguistics and cultural
skills in this economic context, I think, was his most important
contribution”.
Other, perhaps less well known, contributors include Robert
Ketchell, a Japanese garden designer whose contribution to the book
is down to earth and heart-warming, and the photojournalist and
publisher Setsuo Kato.
All those included have made a great impact in the field of
international understanding.
YouTube - Suzanne and Chizuko - Kimono and Tea ceremony for Sky
Travel - 1996
