Case Study: Orkney Japan Association Covid Recovery Fund for Culture 2023

Our main aim was to strengthen Orkney Japan Association through developing new or stronger links with other Orkney groups and organisations and to contribute to the creative energy of Orkney and promote Orkney through our activities.  We have succeeded in these areas.

We are delighted to have a number of new partners and collaboration opportunities, especially with KOLEKTO, Stromness Museum and long term partner Soulisquoy Printmakers.

Our project exceeded our expectations, both in terms of the complexity of the final project and the new connections we were able to make through it.

The opportunity to begin planning the project at the start of the year together with good communication allowed us to meet the challenges that arose and support each other as a team. An initial project team of 4 quickly became a core team of 3, each bringing different skills and experience. They were Rebecca Marr (KOLEKTO) and Megumi Barrington-Uenoyama for content/curation and Ruta Noreika for overall logistics and coordination. We had strong support from a relatively small number of volunteers, and one of the ongoing challenges for OJA is to build a deeper group of folk with a bit of spare time to offer.

• Exhibitions. Having started with one art exhibition inspired mainly by the work of Dr Kathleen Drew-Baker (known as the Mother of the Sea in Japan) on nori seaweed Howie Firth suggested it might combine well with Earthbound Orkney and A Fragile Correspondence, and indeed it did. We formed Surf & Turf with them, and the connection is being maintained through personal contacts which may lead to future collaborations.
• Mother of the Sea 海の母 was held across two venues, Northlight Gallery in Stromness and Ship of Fools in Kirkwall.  The latter included 3 films and a powerpoint presentation of Megumi’s research on artisan nori farming in the Osaka area.  Originally we approached 12 artists to contribute work, the final number was 21 including 3 film makers.
• Seaweed on Sunday at Skaill House was an evening of talks, film and tastings – nori in several forms (made by Sakura Kitchen) other seaweed snacks and Skaill House gin flavoured with wakame.  The event sold out.　Seaweed as a sustainable source of food for humans and animals, the history of seaweed farming and current consumption of seaweed as food were some of the topics covered.
• Future possibilities The Orkney tale of the Mither of the Sea was the other source of inspiration, and we plan to revisit tales of the sea and seaweed as well as the gods and monsters that dwell there in future projects. To our surprise, Dr Kathleen Drew-Baker’s granddaughter and family offered to share family papers and memories. These are of interest also to Ewen and Maya, whose film about Kathleen Drew Baker was part of our exhibition, as well as to us.

Seaweed Printing Workshop at Soulisquoy Printmakers. Held the weekend after OISF finished, this fully subscribed specialist workshop offered two different techniques: monoprinting and linoprinting, as well as an opportunity to co-create. Some of the work from this workshop, as well as some of the work from the Mother of the Sea 海の母exhibition will be included in the Stromness Museum’s upcoming seaweed exhibition.

This funding has opened up new opportunities in several ways:

• OJA organisational development: new relationships with artists and heritage organisations through Surf & Turf collaboration partners Earthbound Orkney/EBUKI and Fragile Correspondence. New collaboration with KOLEKTO and Stromness Museum. New links in Japan in Hokkaido and the Ariake Sea area, both centres of seaweed production, also in Osaka. 
• New connections with academics, working in sustainable food and Japanese anthropology, means that our network of Japan specialists outwith Orkney is expanding, something we hope will be of benefit to the community longer term.
• Successful collaboration with OISF also raised OJA profile in Orkney and elsewhere.  For example, notable increase in social media traffic and growth in Facebook likes and followers.
• The exhibition was externally reviewed and the review was published in the Orcadian. OISF have invited us to contribute to the 2025 programme as well.

Art projects linking Japan and Orkney are a core activity for OJA, and benefits included multiple new contacts with artists using seaweed in their work from Scotland, England, Switzerland, France, Finland and Germany.

OJA Covid Recovery Appendix 2 OJA Covid Recovery Appendix 3

Images courtesy Megumi Barrington-Uenoyama