History of Art PhD Candidate Mia Kivel traveled to Japan this August to conduct research for her upcoming colloquium and dissertation (tentatively titled Anti-Aphasic Art in Contemporary Ainu-Moshir) which will address the capacity of Indigenous Ainu artists to produce work that challenges their audiences to think about their homeland’s colonial history in new ways while simultaneously offering new visions for Indigenous joy and resilience in the present and future. For her research, Mia visited art exhibitions across Japan, including Aynu Moshir—The Ainu World: Regional Voices and Cultural Diversity, presented by the Kokugakuin University Museum in Tokyo and Ainu Collection at the Vienna World Exposition of 1873, presented by the Upopoy National Ainu Museum. In addition, she traveled across rural Hokkaido to visit the Ainu communities in Nibutani and the Lake Akan region, where she had the opportunity to make connections with artists including Sekine Maki and Fujito Kohei.

During her trip, Mia also had the opportunity to take a short course through the Hokkaido University Summer Institute taught by Ainu scholar and performer Kanako Uzawa, titled Introduction to Ainu and Indigenous Art. Over the course of four days, she and other interested scholars from Japan, China, Indonesia, France, and the United Kingdom studied the community-building potential of contemporary Indigenous artwork, interspersed with short hands-on lessons relating to Ainu dance and Attush (elm-bark thread) braiding, among other things.

Mia’s travel this summer was generously supported by grants from the Department of History of Art’s Murnane Travel Scholarship Fund and the College of Arts and Sciences Graduate Research Small Grant Funding, and will no doubt prove invaluable as she continues working towards the completion of her degree.