ONGOING PROJECTS / GRANTS:
- Project: Urban Water Culture (2019-)
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
Urban water has emerged as a major concern in recent years. Water is the source of all life, but it is also at the base of many social and ecological problems in cities worldwide. Megacities such as Tokyo face diverse challenges ranging from flooding and the heat-island effect to pollution and biodiversity loss, all of which are being exacerbated by climate change. As these crises erode modernist myths, new approaches rooted in post-anthropocentric and transdisciplinary epistemologies are urgently needed. This project explores Japan’s cities as sites for the global, transcultural circulation of water practices and imaginaries by prompting exchange between academics, across oceans and disciplines who are engaged in urban water sustainability issues.
This project is embedded in Urban Waters, an interdisciplinary and international network established in 2019 by three scholars: Prof. Ewa Machotka (University of Zurich), Prof. Mikiko Sugiura (Sophia University, Tokyo), and Prof. Takehiro Watanabe (Sophia University, Tokyo). The network is rooted in the MIRAI (2017-2019 https://www.mirai.nu), a strategic research platform connecting Swedish and Japanese universities targeting current global issues such as sustainability. This framework facilitated initiation of the collaboration which then extend beyond MIRAI and in 2020 transformed into a separate network.
PROJECT MEMBERS:
- Ewa Machotka, Professor in East Asian Art History, University of Zurich (ewa.machotka@khist.uzh.ch)
- Takehiro Watanabe, Associate Professor in Anthropology, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Sophia Univesity, Tokyo (takwatanabe@sophia.ac.jp)
- Mikiko Sugiura, Professor in Sustainable Water Management, Center for Global Education and Discovery, Sophia University, Tokyo (sugiura_mikiko@sophia.ac.jp)
PROJECT FUNDING:
- MIRAI, Sweden-Japan Research Platform (2017-2019)
- Conference Grant 2021, Institute for the Studies of the Global Environment, Sophia University, Tokyo
- Research Grant 2022, Metropolitan Center for Far Easter Art Studies, Kyoto (2022- 2023)
- Research Grant 2022, Scandinavia-Japan Sasakawa Foundation (2022-2024)
PROJECT ACTIVITIES:
Research presentations:
- Watanabe T. “Monet’s pond in Tokyo: Cosmopolitan Aesthetics and Ecological Nativism in an Urban Freshwater Biodiversity Conservation Initiative”, European Association of Japanese Studies Conference, August 2023, University of Ghent.
- Machotka E. “Between Ethics and Aesthetics: Mapping Cosmopolitan Mobilities of Landscape Imagination”, International Workshop “Cultural Translation between Europe and Asia in the Heritage Sector”, May 2022, University of Glasgow.
- Machotka E. “The Ethic of Cosmopolitan Aesthetics: Conservation of Inokashira Pond in Tokyo”, October 2021, Södertörn University, Stockholm.
- Watanabe T., Machotka E. “Monet’s Pond in Tokyo: Aestheticizing Waterscapes and the Aura of Cosmopolitan Ecologies.” Symposium “Urban Nature, Urban Culture: Rethinking Water in Japan’s Cities”, October 2021, Sophia University, Tokyo.
- Machotka E. “Contested Waterscapes: Art, Ecology and Tokyo Olympics of 2020”, MIRAI Seminar “Moving Together Towards a Eustainable Future”, November 2019, Stockholm University.
- Watanabe T., Sugiura M., Machotka E. “Pathways to Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”, MIRAI Seminar, March 2019, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo.
- Sugiura M., Watanabe T., Machotka E.. “Regenerating Rivers in Tokyo: Social and Aesthetic Dimensions of an Urban Ecological Change”, MIRAI Seminar: “Sustainable Social System and Technology for Ageing”, October 2018, Sophia University, Tokyo.
- Machotka E. Keynote speech: “Tokyo as a City of Water: Art and Communication of Global Climate Change”, MIRAI Sustainability Workshop “From Source to Sink – Human Society and the Flow of Water”, June 2018, Gothenburg University.
Organization of conferences:
- International Symposium: “Urban Nature, Urban Culture: Rethinking Water in Japan’s Cities”, October 2021, Sophia University, Tokyo. https://urbanwatersjapan.wordpress.com
- Stockholm Seminar on Japan: "Rivers as Method: Environmental Approaches to History and Society in Japan", November 2019, joint event organized by the European Institute of Japanese Studies at the Stockholm School of Economics, the Asia Programme at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Stockholm University and the Swedish Defence University. https://www.hhs.se/en/about-us/calendar/eijs/2019/stockholm-seminar-on-japan-11-november-2019/
Project publications (all authors contributed equally to all papers):
- Machotka E., Watanabe T. “The Social Life of Monet’s Pond: Ethics and Aesthetics in Environmental Conservation of Inokashira Pond in Tokyo.” In Transcultural Itineraries and Biographies: Plants and Gardens, ed. by Törmä M., Routledge (forthcoming 2025).
- Machotka E., Watanabe T., Sugiura M. “Urban Nature, Urban Culture: Rethinking Water in Japan’s Cities: Notes from the Field.” Global Environmental Studies 17 (2022), pp. 29-49.
Other activities:
Ewa Machotka was invited to Sophia University, Tokyo as a visiting professor and was hosted by the Institute for Comparative Culture within the Education Innovation Program “What is Globalization: Think Globally, Act Locally” (web-based due to the Covid-19 pandemic).
