The Department of Art and Visual Culture is co-hosting a screening and Q&A event for the documentary “Carving the Divine: Buddhist Sculptures of Japan” and its producer/director, Yujiro Seki. The documentary offers a rare, intimate look into a 1,400-year-old Buddhist woodcarving tradition and the practitioners struggling to preserve its legacy in a rapidly changing Japan. The film is broadly interdisciplinary, appealing to those interested in materiality, history, religion, community engagement, foreign languages and cultures, and documentary filmmaking itself.
Isabel McWilliams, assistant professor of art history, will introduce the documentary and the history of Japanese woodcarving at 5 p.m. The screening will begin at 5:30 p.m., followed by a Q&A session with Seki via Zoom at approximately 7:15 p.m.
The event is sponsored by the Iowa State University Lectures Program with support from the Department of Art and Visual Culture, Department of World Languages and Cultures, and CODAC (the College of Design Art Club).