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[Re-thinking Japonisme: Digitisation of the V&A’s collection of Japanese ukiyo-e prints and illustrated books and researching its formation in the late 19th century]April 1, 2022(Fri)Since 2003, the V&A and the Art Research Centre (ARC) have been collaborating on the creation of a digital archive of the over 25,000 ukiyo-e items held by the V&A. This new stage of the research project at the V&A will build on the existing archive and our previous collaboration. It will extend the ARC's mandate at the V&A to facilitate access to and research on Japan's cultural heritage through new international exchanges. This project will also be a collaborative venture between the ARC and the V&A together with the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures (SISJAC) to enhance the provision of a state-of-the-art resource for research and teaching.
Public accessibility of the V&A's collection of ukiyo-e woodblock prints and books will be drastically improved by photographing over 500 books currently without images and enhancing cataloguing records of 12,000 prints on the V&A's online collection database 'Explore the Collections'(https://www.vam.ac.uk/collections).1