Jumi on tour: Camera Japan part 2: LEARNING

Last Saturday we went to museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, because Camera Japan organized a special 'Japan' program: a guided tour and two lectures. Before we could join the program, we had to buy a special Camera Japan ticket at another place, Lantarenvenster (a cinema). So we went to the cinema (approx. 30 minutes by metro) to buy this ticket. With this ticket you can enter the museum for free AND watch a movie at the cinema before or after visiting the museum. We wanted to see a movie and we found out that this ticket is actually cheaper than buying a normal ticket at the museum. We planned ahead, and decided to go and watch the movie Solanin after our visit to the museum. We did have enough time to travel back to the cinema, after the lectures at the museum. We would be on time for Solanin, according to our schedule.

LEARNING

Museum Boijmans van Beuningen

Guided tour
OK, so we waited at the museum with some other people, for the special guided Camera Japan tour. A grumpy old (who thinks she's still 20) pms-lady was looking at us, full of arrogance..but wait,... so she's the one who will be the guide? Nooooo! Luckily we could choose between 2 guides. Ofcourse we joined the other group and not Ms Grumpy's. The guide brought us to paintings of Van Gogh, Monet and other painters. These paintings had some typical elements of Japanese or other Asian painting styles and techniques. We also saw collections of (Chinese) porcelain and vases. It was an interesting tour, thanks to our friendly guide Mr. Chan. Thanks!

Lecture 3D Tokyo Love Hotel

Loved this one. The photos of Canadian photographer Nathalie Daoust are telling so much without words. She went to Tokyo, to explore the love hotels and ended up at Alpha In, a SM love hotel. Nathalie had lots of interesting stories to tell about her adventures as a photographer. But sadly she couldn't tell everything because of limited time. Her goal in Tokyo was to photograph portraits of the mistresses of Alpha In to show their emotion and their femininity. The photos were absolutely not cliche or gory but very beautifully shot. While watching a photo you can almost feel the emotion by the colors and setting of the photos. An unique element of her photo reportage is that she also made pictures of rooms in 3D. So with 3D-glasses which we received before the lecture, it gives the pictures a nicer view, than seeing it just as a plain picture. During her presentation everybody was silent and paid attention in the room. Very nice, miss Daoust! She also had a giveaway for everybody, the actual questionnaire of Alpha In in English. Besides your name, the questionnaire had a list of very intimate and explicit questions.. which we won't share with you guys here. *teehee* Send us a message if you want to take a peek in the list.

Lecture J-Horror

One of Jumi's highlights was the lecture of J-Horror by Kishino Yuichi, a professor sounddesign at Tokyo University of the Arts. He brought an assistant to support his lecture. During the lecture, we went back in time through short scenes of Japanese horror movies from the sixties until now. Sometimes I really laughed out loud watching scenes of long ago. For example an horror of the seventies called Matango, starring mushroompeople and a man who had mushrooms sprout out of his face. Haha hilarious, it was like having a LSD-trip or something, watching this strange old horrorscene and lots of other scenes. But well, ofcourse time is changing, just like advanced technology and special effects in  movies. Nowadays, we're less afraid of watching horror with silly puppets (just like Chucky) or human mushrooms.

Unfortunately the lecture was planned for about one hour. Normally it takes three hours. So, in my opinion, it was as if the lecture was improvised, because of the lack of time. We didn't get a lot of general explanation about the development of J-Horror, only explanations about the scenes. Maybe it's because of the language barrier. It didn't seem like they could speak English very very well. The assistant just read everything from a piece of paper, instead of really presenting or lecturing it. Yet, it was really fun to see horrorscenes of 40 years ago 'till now. I really hope that I can attend the whole lecture of three hours of Kishino Yuichi someday..

The lecture ran out a bit late, so we had to hurry to be on time for Solanin, the movie which would be shown at the cinema, another location! Read part 3 of Jumi on tour and find out if we will be on time for the movie!