Washington, D.C., May 31, 2023: The Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission (JUSFC) announces the arrival in Japan of the first group of JUSFC Summer Institute students. The 2023 Summer Institute is a two-week intensive study experience in Japan that includes visits to Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto, and Nara. This rich academic and cultural experience from May 24-June 9 […]

**U.S.-Japan Creative Artists Fellowship Program Grantees are available for interviews and demonstrations. B-roll is also available** After the postponement of the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games for a full year, five teams of creative artists from the United States and Japan continued working together on innovative projects that reflected the themes of the Games; unity, […]

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to teach English in another country? For alumni of the Japan Exchange & Teaching Programme (JET), the reality of living and working in Japan while teaching English is a shared experience, and for many it was a life-changing one. More than 35,000 Americans have participated in […]

Created to strengthen the U.S.-Japan relationship through study abroad in Japan, the U.S.-Japan Bridging Foundation has been working since 1998 to support more than 2,000 students with scholarships to study abroad in Japan on long-term programs. As the foundation’s Executive Director, Dr. Tom Mason shares, “Our organization is proud to partner with the Japan-U.S. Friendship […]

Created more than 300 years ago, the beautifully intricate piece of art shown to the right is a Japanese narrative scroll, which was likely created for a lady’s trousseau. It is now part of the library collection at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While a visitor or student may be able to study and […]

JUSFC Fireside Chat: Thursday, November 19 from 7:00 p.m.-8:30 p.m. ET/Friday, November 20 from 9:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m. JST Registration is required in advance for this meeting: After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting, including a password. U.S.-Japan Creative Artists Program Fellow Gene Coleman in conversation with Miho Walsh, […]

Live karate routines, original music performed by outstanding Japanese traditional musicians a renowned string quartet, and audio-visual projections of EEG brainwave activity throughout – these are all components of the cutting-edge “media opera” brainchild of JUSFC’s U.S.-Japan Creative Artists Fellowship Program grantee Gene Coleman. His live performance, entitled KATA, was originally scheduled to take place […]

Something of a modern Renaissance man, Jesse Schlesinger has a plethora of artistic passions, from sculpture and woodworking to architecture, interior design, drawing and photography. A second-generation carpenter with a degree in Art, his work and career focus on an underlying theme of “place,” exploring how the natural environment, architecture and historical precedent contribute to […]

When Sue Mark and Bruce Douglas of marksearch and their 11-year-old son Roli left their Oakland home for Tokyo in mid-March, they wondered if they were making the right choice. California’s governor had just issued a shelter-in-place order, and concerns about the coronavirus were ramping up. For months they had been planning to live in Tokyo, […]

Cameron McKinney performs at the Men In Dance Show. See video clip here. From an early age, Cameron McKinney had a fascination and love for Japanese music and culture. This led him to the library in middle school, where he began to teach himself how to write Japanese characters. Subsequently he found and participated in a […]

Benjamin Volta creates intricate public murals and sculptures, working in the fields of education, restorative justice and urban planning. For almost two decades, Ben has developed a collaborative process with Pennsylvania public schools to create participatory art rooted in the belief that art can be a catalyst for change. Cho Kuwakado is an arts educator […]

Bashō’s road throughout Tohoku hope remains In the 17 syllables of this haiku, which appeared in Japan’s Asahi daily newspaper, LA contributor Stephen DeGuire captured his feelings in the initial aftermath of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear explosion that devastated Fukushima, Japan on March 11, 2011 – known commonly now, as 3-11. He was referring […]

From the streets and clubs of New York City to the tea houses of Japan, the artistic journey of Hip Hop Performance Artist Akim “Funk Buddha” Ndlovu is as multifaceted as his craft. His talents range from classic hip hop rhymes, beat-boxing and Mongolian throat-singing to body-balancing, martial arts, gumboot dance and circus arts. The […]

August 7, 2019 Washington, DC—The Japan-United States Friendship Commission (JUSFC) and the National Endowment for the Arts are pleased to announce the selection of five artistic teams for the 2019-2020 US/Japan Creative Artists Fellowship Program. Each team of artists from the United States and Japan will work together on a project (for a total of […]

Iwate Prefecture in the Tohoku region of northeastern Japan is a place that experienced intense trauma in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. NAKA Dance Theater Co-Founders José Navarrete and Debby Kajiyama found community when their visit to support relief efforts that year led to their participation in Otsuchi’s annual two-day Kozuchi Shrine […]

Exciting new opportunities are beginning to grow on the campus of Moravian College as a result of its InFocus Initiative and Peace and Justice Studies Program. It all started four years ago when Moravian’s new provost found money for an exploratory trip to Japan to develop a study abroad opportunity for students to travel to […]

Calling all artists, and program alumni! Join us for a webinar on February 7, 2019 at 3:00 p.m. ET with the National Endowment for the Arts to discuss the U.S.-Japan Creative Artists Program.  Applications are due March 1, 2019. Register for the webinar here.

Before the inception of Collaborative Cataloging Japan (CCJ), video in the national archives of Japan remained largely focused on feature films. “Experimental and avant-garde work and even home movies needed to be included in the archives,” explains CCJ Executive Director and JUSFC grantee Ann Adachi-Tasch. “Individual artists had been using their personal grant monies to […]

Rural authorities everywhere are enacting pioneering policies and working to improve their citizens’ lives, and this is particularly true in Japan. The Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission has partnered with Apolitical on a project to engage Japanese and American policy makers, public servants and other relevant experts around the topic on rural resilience. The goal of the […]

The Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission is delighted to announce that three outstanding scholars from the United States have been selected to participate in the 2019 Fellowship Program for Advanced Social Science Research on Japan. The Fellowship is a joint activity of the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Awards support research on […]

For three weeks in June 2018, 13 students accompanied by two faculty members of Elizabethtown College participated in an interactive study abroad program in Japan.  This two-credit course required students to write a daily travelogue of personal reflections of their experiences and insights into Japanese culture; complete assigned reading including a newspaper article and discussion […]

For Immediate Release Washington, D.C., July 10, 2018: The Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission (JUSFC) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced today that a group of five outstanding artists from the United States have been selected to participate in the 2018 U.S.-Japan Creative Artists Program. The artists will travel to Japan during the 2019 […]

With an undergraduate degree in architecture, Quynh Vantu was employed in an office environment but missed working with her hands in studio arts. Seeking a creative fusion of the two worlds, she entered the Master’s program at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, which has a legacy of makers and history of design. During her studies […]

Earlier this month, U.S. Representatives Jim Sensenbrenner (Republican-Wisconsin) and Mark Takano (Democrat-California) traveled to Tokyo for meetings with their counterparts from Japan’s National Diet and Korea’s National Assembly. This was the second Asia visit under the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission (JUSFC) Thomas S. Foley Legislative Exchange.  The U.S. lawmakers’ visit began with an April 4 tour of Yokosuka […]

The expertise and experiences of women were at the forefront of an extended conversation during the first U.S.-Japan Women Leaders Dialogue convened by the Japan Center for International Exchange (JCIE) in September 2017 in Tarrytown, New York. The two-day event capped the 2017 gathering of JCIE’s Parliamentary Exchange Program. Made possible in part through a […]

Like the elusive sands of time shifting in an hourglass, Kimi Maeda captures the intangible nature of memory in the sand drawings central to her most recent project, Bend. Connecting the past with the present, interwoven with archival video footage projected on a screen, Maeda tells the story of her father’s experience in an Arizona […]

Nearly 600 people attended the premiere of the Hiroshi Sugimoto: Gates of Paradise exhibition in October at Japan Society in midtown Manhattan – one of its most successful openings in its recent history. The exhibit’s striking design and Sugimoto’s monumental photographs drew critical raves from both the general public and the art world. “One always […]

Two outstanding scholars are the recipients of the 2017-18 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission (JUSFC) Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature. The prizes will be awarded in March 2018 at a ceremony at the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture, Columbia University. David Boyd, SLOW BOAT (Pushkin Press, 2017); Hiroaki Sato, THE SILVER SPOON: MEMOIR OF […]

Theater Breaking Through Barriers (TBTB), is the only Off-Broadway theater in New York and one of just a few in the United States that is dedicated to advancing actors and writers with disabilities — and changing the image of people with disabilities. “We have always been an integrated company of both disabled and non-disabled artists,” […]

The Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission is delighted to announce that three outstanding scholars from the United States have been selected to participate in the 2018 Fellowship Program for Advanced Social Science Research on Japan. The Fellowship is a joint activity of the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Awards support research on […]

In 2012 Deborah Dash Moore, Professor of History and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan, presented her research on American Jewish history in a series of lectures at the University of Kitakyushu in Japan. Her work interested many Japanese students and scholars, particularly women, who found similarities and shared experiences in her seminar. Moore […]

Eighty-three years ago, before World War II, students concerned about the relationship between the United States and Japan created the Japan-America Student Conference (JASC). JASC is a student-led exchange that allows young people from each country to spend a month together learning, growing and finding new ways to build the bilateral relationship. In 2008, the […]

For Immediate Release Washington, D.C., August 2, 2017: The Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission (JUSFC) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced today that a group of five outstanding artists from the United States have been selected to participate in the 2017 U.S.-Japan Creative Artists Program. The artists will travel to Japan during the 2018 […]

In 2014, JUSFC awarded the Mansfield Foundation an institutional grant for its U.S.-Japan Space Forum (USJSF), comprised of space policy experts from the governments of the United States and Japan, private sector, and think tank and academic communit ies. The Foundation held meetings in Montana, Washington, D.C., Seattle and Tokyo, inviting informal discussion and dialogue […]

The Japan U.S. Friendship Commission is pleased to support the National Association of Japan America Societies’ (NAJAS) Richard J. Wood Art Curator Series. This program offers a series of talks at Japan-America Societies by curators of Japanese art at major museums in the United States. The participating curators are well known in the field and […]

With degrees in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design and in Interactive Telecommunication from NYU, Alex Dodge’s work combines the promise of technology as it interacts with and shapes human experience. He focuses his attention as an artist between new media and traditional fine art disciplines including painting, printmaking, woodworking and sculpture. His […]

The Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission is delighted to announce that two outstanding scholars from the United States have been selected to participate in the 2017 Fellowship Program for Advanced Social Science Research on Japan. The Fellowship is a joint activity of the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Awards support research on […]

In 2014 the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission awarded an institutional grant to the East-West Center (EWC) in Washington, D.C. to support their Japan Matters for America website project. With JUSFC’s help, EWC created an online platform that houses comprehensive and multi-activity data to showcase Japan’s critical importance to the United States, and vice versa.  Satu Limaye, […]

JUSFC will host a roundtable discussion at the annual conference of the Association of Asian Studies in Toronto on March 16, 2017 to address why Japanese language study is important and the ways in which to secure interest and support for language study among the next generation of students.  Here, we are highlighting the American […]

Cultural researchers Sue Mark and Bruce Douglas of MarkSearch were awarded the Creative Artist Exchange Fellowship in 2016 and traveled to Japan in May 2016 for a six-month residency. Sue and Bruce are passionate about experiencing different ways of living and viewing the world through another perspective. They do this by viewing people and places […]

JUSFC is delighted to support the National Bureau of Asian Research’s (NBR) Pacific Trilateralism project.  Pacific Trilaterism is designed to increase public understanding of the evolution of the dynamics between the United States, Japan and South Korea, and how the three nations can work jointly to strengthen their relationship in the coming decades. “Grant support […]

Writer, designer and filmmaker Graham Kolbeins was named a recipient of the 2016 Creative Artist Exchange Fellowship and traveled to Japan in March for three-month residency. Kolbeins was based mostly in Tokyo, but traveled to Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, Gunma and Okinawa to conduct interviews for his film, Queer Japan. Queer Japan is an ensemble film […]

In celebration of its 40th anniversary, the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission is having conversations with a number of grantees. Landscape architect Ron Henderson was awarded a Creative Artist Exchange Fellowship in 2011 and traveled to Japan in 2012. The Fellowship is funded by the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission and administered in partnership with the National Endowment for […]

For Immediate Release Washington, D.C., August 3, 2016: The Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission (JUSFC) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced today that a group of five outstanding artists from the United States have been selected to participate in the 2017 U.S.-Japan Creative Artists Program. The artists will travel to Japan during the 2017 […]

In celebration of its 40th anniversary, the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission is having conversations with a number of grantees. “The three month journey to Japan strengthened my interests in the traditional arts and I am incorporating some basic principles of tradition into how I think about making work now. I continue to investigate the experience and […]

In celebration of its 40th anniversary, the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission is having conversations with a number of grantees. The Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission is proud to support the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and its project, Orpheus with Nobuyuki Tsujii:  a Cross-Cultural Partnership. This unique conductor-less orchestra will collaborate with 27 year-old Japanese pianist and composer Nobuyuki Tsujii […]

In celebration of its 40th anniversary, the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission is having conversations with a number of grantees. Visual artist Katie Cercone was awarded a U.S.-Japan Creative Artist Exchange Fellowship in 2015. The Fellowship is funded by the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission and administered in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts. “It was really […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation and the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission (JUSFC) this week welcomed the first delegation of legislators to visit Washington under the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Thomas S. Foley Legislative Exchange — the Foley Exchange — a new public-private partnership intended to build lasting relationships among U.S., Japanese, and Korean elected officials. […]

The Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission congratulates U.S.-Japan Creative Artists Program Alumna Sawako Nakayasu on winning the 2016 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. The award recognizes book-length translations of poetry from any language into English published in 2015. Ms. Nakayasu won for The Collected Poems of Chika Sagawa, translated from the Japanese. Since 1978, the Commission […]

In celebration of its 40th anniversary, the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission is having conversations with a number of grantees. “I consider myself one of the luckiest people on earth for being a part of the program and reflect on it constantly,” remarks contemporary artist Karen LaMonte. She is known for her innovative work creating glass sculptures […]

In celebration of its 40th anniversary, the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission is having conversations with a number of grantees. “I have the opportunity to consider environmental problems, so together we can discuss why we have to protect native species,” remarks Reina Takadan a second year student from Kansai University’s Takatsuki campus in Osaka. Reina is currently […]

In celebration of its 40th anniversary, the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission is having conversations with a number of grantees. For a number of years, the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission has proudly supported the U.S. Congressional Staff Exchange Program, which is managed and executed by the Japan Center for International Exchange (JCIE). This longstanding project is designed to […]

In celebration of its 40th anniversary, the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission is having conversations with a number of grantees. The Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission is delighted to support for the first time, the screening of short and feature-length Japanese films at the New York International Children’s Film Festival (NYICFF) that opened February 26th with The Boy and […]

The Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission is delighted to support the screening of Japanese films at the New York International Children’s Film Festival (NYICFF) that opens February 26th with The Boy and the Beast directed by Mamoru Hosoda. The Film Festival will take place over four weekends February 26 – March 20th at venues throughout New York […]

The Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission is pleased to be a sponsor of International Pop at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which opened February 24, and runs through May 15, 2016. The exhibition chronicles Pop art’s emergence as an international movement, migrating from the United Kingdom and the United States to western and eastern Europe, Latin America, […]

In celebration of its 40th anniversary, the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission is having conversations with a number of grantees. Paul Kikuchi, a composer, percussionist and sound artist from Indianola, Washington, was a recipient of the U.S.-Japan Creative Artists Exchange Fellowship. He traveled to Japan for several months in 2015 to conduct in-depth research into Japanese history, […]

The Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission is pleased to be a sponsor of Tabaimo: Her Room at the San Jose Museum of Art, which opened February 6, 2016 and runs through August 21, 2016. This is the first major museum exhibition in the United States showing works by world-renowned Japanese artist, Tabaimo. The exhibit features three video […]

In the forty years since it was established in 1975, the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission (JUSFC) has supported research on timely issues to inform the public about current developments in U.S.-Japan relations. In 2015, JUSFC commissioned a study by Professor Robert Pekkanen at the University of Washington on the role of civil society in Japan in […]

Three outstanding scholars are the recipients of the 2015 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission (JUSFC) Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature, recently awarded during a ceremony at the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture, Columbia University. Since its establishment in 1975, on of the ways in which the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission has supported and sustained the […]

For Immediate Release Washington, D.C., September 10, 2015: The Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission (JUSFC) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced today that a group of five outstanding artists from the United States have been selected to participate in the 2016 U.S.-Japan Creative Artists Program. The artists will travel to Japan during the 2016 […]