Happy New Year! The year of the wood dragon seems an appropriate time for the Fifth International Mokuhanga Conference, Inheritance and Innovation: Mokuhanga Artists Explore Japanese Paper, which will take place April 4-6, 2024 in Echizen, Japan.
Registration
We have almost one hundred registrations for the conference. March 1 will be the closing date for registration, although day passes will continue to be available. Many of the workshops and tours are already full, so please register as soon as possible. We will try to make additional tours available and will notify our mailing list and update this website of any changes. The hotel rooms we blocked are now fully booked, but you can still make reservations through online booking sites such as Agoda.
Exhibitions
The International Juried Exhibition includes 140 artists and can be previewed on our conference website 2024.mokuhanga.org. The work will be hung at the Imadate Conference Center during the conference along with a show dedicated to the work of late Vice Chair Ralph Kiggell, who was so essential to the success of the 2021 Fourth International Mokuhanga Conference, Sumi-Fusion, in Nara and online. Additional exhibitions include a board member show and an exhibition of work by the Mokuhanga Sisters collective.
Keynote and Presentations
On Friday morning, April 5, Peter MacMillan, prize-winning translator, scholar, poet, and artist will give the keynote address along with additional introductory presentations. On Saturday morning, April 6, Open Portfolio will be followed by demonstrations by master carver Shoichi Kitamura and master printer Kyoko Hirai.
Product Showcase
Each day of the conference fifteen local paper manufacturers will present more than fifty types of handmade and machine made Japanese paper and will offer sample books for participants. The website of the Echizen Washi Association offers an introduction to the history of Echizen Washi and the characteristics of local papers. The test printing workshops will provide an opportunity to try papers and to exchange ideas with the manufacturers. You may discover a new favorite paper and your opinion may provide advice to improve the paper. Additional details about the participating papermakers will be available soon and listed on this website.
IMC Structure
The International Mokuhanga Conference was conceived of by Keiko Kadota in 2011 as a triennial conference about creative mokuhanga. Her vision for the conference and the Mi-Lab training program has been sustained by Director Yasuyuki Sato. Keiko Kobayashi is the Project Coordinator for this conference as well as for the Mi-Lab program. International board members for the Fifth IMC are Mara Cozzolino (Italy), Jacqueline Gribbin (Australia), Mike Lyon (USA), Yoonmi Nam (USA), Florence Neal (USA), Katsu Yuasa (Japan), April Vollmer (USA). For the complete list of staff, advisory and board members see about-imc-head-office
Upcoming
A new express JR train to Echizen-Takefu Station from Tokyo will open March 15, we will send out the schedule when it becomes available.
We are already planning the Sixth International Mokuhanga Conference in 2027 at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, USA. We will keep you updated as plans evolve.
Looking forward to seeing you in Echizen.