Yellow Earth Theatre Launches TSUNGAU/CONNECT At The Museum Of London

On Sunday 26 January, Yellow Earth Theatre launched Tsunagu/Connect; a project that aims to uncover the lives of Japanese Women living in the UK.

Tsunagu/Connect is an 18-month project that will culminate in a live immersive performance with a virtual reality installation and exhibition that aims to go beyond the stereotypes of the Japanese woman as a submissive, stay-at-home, model wife and mother, with a mission to bring the many different voices and experiences of Japanese women living in the UK to a wider public.

On Sunday, members of The Japan Society, The Museum of London and Yellow Earth Theatre gathered to launch this project, which will begin with volunteer interviewers from the community gathering oral histories of Japanese women living in the UK since 1945. They hope to document these pioneering women who often risked family shame and security to travel halfway across the globe to settle in a country where they barely knew anyone and were not always welcome. These interviews will culminate in a live immersive production, virtual reality installation and exhibition in 2021 created by Kumiko Mendl and performance artist Kazuko Hohki.

Artistic Director of Yellow Earth Theatre, Kumiko Mendl today said, "We were thrilled with the turnout at our launch event on Sunday and by all the rich and varied conversations that our speakers and workshops helped provoke. There is evidently a keen interest in the Tsunagu/Connect project amongst the community and a desire for these women-centred stories to be told. With misconceptions and stereotypes aplenty, there is still so little written or documented about the actual lives of Japanese women living in Britain and we hope that this project will go some way to rectify this. As we embark on the first stage of the project - collecting oral histories from different generations of Japanese women living in the UK - we look forward to discovering more about their lives, experiences and stories and sharing them with the wider public in 2021."

Head of Engagement at the Museum of London, Sara Wajid today said "We were delighted to host the launch of Tsunagu Connect at Museum of London and contribute in some small way to this inspiring community-led history work. We also gleaned invaluable responses from participants on the museum objects and photographs relating to the Japanese diaspora in London, which many people had no idea are here."

Tsunagu/Connect is a project led by Yellow Earth Theatre in partnership with the Japan Society and the Museum of London and supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. It is part of the Japan-UK Season of Culture 2019-2020. The Project will culminate in an immersive performance piece by the theatre company in 2021.