Welcome to Connections

Loughborough University and Joshibi University of Art and Design Cultural Exchange Programme

Welcome to a new development in the continuing international relationship between Loughborough University and Joshibi University of Art and Design, our School’s institutional partner in Tokyo, Japan.

This online exhibition has been built in defiant response to the global COVID-19 pandemic as a way of celebrating continuing cultural connections between the two institutions.

For five years, Loughborough University has welcomed Joshibi University of Art and Design undergraduate students onto the East Midlands campus to experience a month-long cultural exchange programme. Students are invited to participate and engage in a number of arts, cultural and linguistic activities across campus.

Ordinarily, our exchange programme aims to foster and promote cross-cultural understanding and appreciation, through jointly hosted exhibitions of student work, cultural visits beyond campus and social events that see students from both institutions meet, exchange ideas and ultimately become friends and acquaintances. Students realise that they have many points of reference; they share similar concerns about the world around them and find positive and encouraging ways of maintaining friendships and developing collaborations.

The Connections web site this year retains this spirit of showing, sharing and growing. Despite local quarantine conditions, travel restrictions and linguistic differences, this exhibition of work proves that there is a strong bond between the two institutions that has grown and developed.

We are proud to showcase student responses to the project theme in a virtual gallery that has been curated as closely as possible to the physical experience of hosting our exhibition. We have works, translations and interpretations – in fact, the only thing missing are the warm smiles of the Joshibi students and staff themselves. We know that they will return in the coming years when life takes on a new normality.

Andrew Selby
Senior Lecturer Illustration and Animation
School of Design and Creative Arts