ART RESEARCH CENTER

The Art Research Center (ARC), Ritsumeikan University, held a Joint Digital Archiving Technical Workshop with the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures (SISJAC) and the Sainsbury Centre, University of East Anglia, United Kingdom, on Digitizing Hanging Scrolls.

The first of a bilingual video series, this workshop served as a prototype for providing cross-cultural online training to young researchers in various skills and methods of digital-archiving Japanese artworks while promoting research exchange between Japan and the UK.

Via a live stream, Professor Ryo Akama, College of Letters, Ritsumeikan University, explained step-by-step how to master the skill of digital archiving with Japanese hanging scrolls as a practical example.

From the set-up of the shooting location and adjusting the lighting to advising on handling the artworks, taking photographs effectively, and recommending various equipment and accessories, Professor Akama led through the entire process of digital-archiving hanging scrolls, followed by a Q&A session.

While Japanese graduate students at the venue obtained hands-on experience in executing a digital archiving project independently, the photographs taken were shared immediately with the UK counterparts to discuss the quality and accuracy of the results under the guidance of Professor Akama.

In line with the ARC's mission to disseminate know-how in digital-archiving Japanese art collections worldwide, the workshop video will serve as an educational resource and reference material for future digitization projects.

This project is funded by the International Joint Digital Archiving Center for Japanese Art and Culture (ARC-iJAC) and is part of SISJAC's Digital Japan Project.

SISJAC's report of the workshop→

*Please note that this was a non-public event.