Japan 2001 - Zen Calligraphy, V&A

This exhibition focuses on the highly charged and often powerfully gestural works of many of the great names of the Zen calligraphic tradition. It provides a rare opportunity to see a genre of work that, despite its centrality to the Japanese artistic canon, has had little exposure in Britain. The works will be rotated in early October. On Saturday 8 and 15 September there will be drop-in calligraphy workshops in the Toshiba Gallery. On Sunday 9 and 16 September, there will be swordsmanship, breathing exercise and calligraphy demonstrations in the Lecture Theatre. The workshops and demonstrations are being led by Professor Tanchu Terayama, who founded the Society for the Way of the Zen Brush (Hitsuzendo) in 1977 to further the principle expounded by Yamaoka Tesshu(1836-1888) that Zen, swordsmanship and calligraphy are one and the same in their aspiration to the state of 'no-mind'.