Yama – The Mining Art of Sakubei Yamamoto
Big Pit National Coal Museum, Blaenavon
Until Wed 30 Sept 2020
The Big Pit National Coal Museum is hosting an exhibition on the works of Japanese coalminer turned artist Sakubei Yamamoto. Born in 1892, Yamamoto worked as a miner for some 50 years and kept diaries documenting his experiences. It is the content of these diaries that Yamamoto would reproduce as art, from 1955 until his death in 1984. “The Yama [mining] is fading,” he wrote, and his art was a way of leaving “behind something of the work and feeling of the Yama” for future generations.
While Yamamoto’s art is aesthetically Japanese, the museum assures museumgoers that the mining depicted in his art extends beyond all channels, all barriers of language or nation, and would be identifiable to Welsh miners in turn. It presents a frank portrayal of what being a miner entails – from its dangerous and grim working conditions to the types of people one would encounter in such a hazardous profession. Indeed, Yamamoto was initially worried that using colour could distort the truth in his works, as other than lamps, miners were shrouded in darkness.
Such a candid depiction of mining during Japan’s Meji and Shōwa eras (early-mid 20th century) earned Yamamoto’s works numerous accolades. Notably, in 2011, Yamamoto’s works became the first by a Japanese person to be awarded Memory Of The World status by UNESCO. So, not only does Yamamoto’s work provide an honest lens through which to look at mining, its Japanese backdrop offers a remarkable glimmer into a side of Japanese history rarely considered – its coal mining industry.
The exhibition is organised by London-based Japanese singer Naomi Suzuki. Yama is the first part of Suzuki’s Bridge Together project, that seeks to introduce Japanese culture to the world in the runup to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. A collection of Yamamoto’s works will be displayed around Big Pit leading into the main exhibition. Having launched in September and set to remain in situ for over a year, this promises to be a thought-provoking exhibition appealing widely to anyone interested in either Japanese history and culture, the history of the coal industry, or art.
words GARETH KENT
Admission: free. Info: 0300 1112333 / www.museum.wales/bigpit