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This case study demonstrates how through the innovative use of photography and the creation of a multi-sensory, spatial context within the museum, distinctive opportunities are produced for re- evaluating deep-rooted cultural stereotypes and disseminating complex knowledge to the general public. The exhibition `At Home in Japan' focused on everyday domestic life to question popular stereotypes that depict Japan as the quintessential, exotic other. The exhibition had an impact on multiple audiences as substantiated by the large visitor numbers, the success of the schools' programme, community outreach workshops, curatorial tours and study days, the subsequent interest in the use of these experimental techniques by museum/academic institutions overseas, and extensive coverage internationally in the traditional media and on the internet.
Professor Timon Screech's scholarship on under-researched areas of Japanese art, history and culture has reached a range of audiences outside of academia. Notably, it has produced a significant impact on cultural life, demonstrated most clearly by its influence on the renowned author David Mitchell in the writing of his best-selling historical novel The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, set in Japan in the late 1700s (2010). Mitchell drew extensively upon several of Screech's publications to inform and, ultimately, enrich his work of fiction, furnishing it with historical contextual detail unavailable in any other scholarly source.
Professor Andrew Gerstle's research and conceptualisation of the first exhibition of Osaka Kabuki prints since 1975 has proved a catalyst in radically reinvigorating interest in Osaka visual culture of the late 18th and 19th centuries, which had hitherto been eclipsed by that of Tokyo. Kabuki Heroes (2005), both as exhibition and detailed catalogue, has prompted further exhibitions on the subject, significantly enhanced the international market for Osaka prints, constitutes a primary source for museum curators and others and has had a significant influence on the British Museum and its curation and planning of its autumn 2013 exhibition Shunga, to which Gerstle has also substantially contributed.
The research of Amanda Vickery, Sandra Cavallo and Jane Hamlett focuses on the interplay between personal identity, space, the material world, and social structures. It has had an impact on UK cultural life, economic prosperity, and public understanding. Demonstrating progress from independent research to externally-funded collaborative research, it has underpinned exhibitions attended by tens of thousands of visitors, generating substantial revenue for two national museums. Linked broadcasting events have earned major audiences, plus significant revenue for the BBC and an independent production company. Visitor/audience feedback demonstrates that the exhibitions and broadcasts have changed public perceptions of both past and present.
Research on the significance of prehistoric clay figures of human beings (the first self-conscious expressions of human identity) was presented to the public, through two major exhibitions with associated programming attracting over 200,000 visitors, generating an estimated £5 million of economic activity. The Power of Dogu (British Museum, 10.09.09 - 22.11.09: over 78,000 visitors; Tokyo National Museum, 15.2.09 - 21.02.10: around 120,000 visitors) was followed by Unearthed (UEA, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, 22.06.10 - 29.08.10). The project attracted funding from AHRC (£282,000) the Mitsubishi Corporation (£100,000), Japan Foundation (£15,000); Hitachi funded a new online resource in English about Japanese archaeology (£120,000).