Artist in residence (AIR) programs provide residency opportunities for visiting artists to stay and work for art’s sake. The programs are usually organized by local governments, NPOs, museums and private corporations, and they contribute to international exchange and discovery of promising artists. The book introduces around 90 AIR programs and over 100 resident artists who share their experiences. Each program, fully illustrated, presents its profile and the interviews. A directory containing contact details for carefully selected AIR programs around the world is attached as a useful reference. .

The author is an architect who arrived in Japan in the early 1990s and experienced the traumatic period in recent Japanese history. This is an anthology of author’s essays and articles which examines the architectural culture in Japan in the post bubble period of the 1990s. It traces new relationships forged between architecture and nature, and architecture and society in Japan.

This is a comprehensive analysis of the history of Japanese cloths over the past 200 years, from the late Edo period where the Kimono was the ordinary clothes to the present day. Separate chapters devoted to men’s and women’s wear. It aims to understand the historical and current fashion in Japan, and to find out what is universal in the clothing of modernity.

The social class structure in Japan has been drastically changed after the bursting of the economic bubble in the 1990s. Through examination of contemporary Japanese society, this book, contributed by the specialists from Japan, Europe and United States, analyzes the dynamics of social structure, institutional socialization and class culture that Japan is facing today.

For such a small country, Japan faces many natural disasters. These 5 sets of DVDs deal with disasters and disaster recoveries by people. The first 4 DVDs present the mechanism of the representative disaster, such as earthquake, Tsunami, storms, and floods, and introduce recent technologies for preventing and recovering from such disasters. The last one features rescue activities around the world.