- Dates: May 14-Oct 29, 1910
The Japan-British Exhibition, held at the White City in London, May 14 through October 29, 1910, was the largest international exhibition Japan had yet participated in. Tomita Kôjirô served as one of the representatives of Japan, and a model of the Taitokuin Mausoleum was shown alongside thirteen other models of Japanese architecture. More than eight million people attended, including King George V and Queen Mary.
The exhibition, like World's Fairs and other international exhibitions, was an opportunity for the Meiji government to show the world how modern Japan was, and to press for greater acceptance as a great power of the world. The Japanese displays included examples of Japanese craft, sports, entertainment, music, and so forth.
The exhibition included a recreation of an Ainu village, in the human zoo fashion which was popular at the time at World's Fairs and other such imperial expositions around the world, as well as an Irish village, displaying Irish people and Irish culture alongside the Ainu and others as colonized peoples.[1]
References
- "Magnificent 1:10 scale model of lost Japanese architectural treasure returns to Tokyo," artdaily.com, 7 Feb 2015.
- "Magnificent model of Japanese architectural treasure returns to Tokyo," British Embassy of Tokyo, 5 Feb 2015.
- ↑ 'Two Moments in the Modern Age: Cultural Relations Between Japan and Europe', Professor Paul Greenhalgh, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Ishibashi Lectures, University of Tokyo, 2013.