It was great to see choice selections from the Bernard Leach archive and Bernard Leach Source Collection as part of the William Morris Gallery exhibition, Art Without Heros: Mingei (see images below). The exhibition provides an overview of Mingei (folk-craft), and the leading role that Bernard Leach, Yanagi Soetsu and Hamada Shoji played in the Japanese movement that venerated the humble simplicity of everyday craft in certain regions of Japan.

The exhibition successfully problematises the romantic adulation of the idea of the pre-modern, naive potter, existing out of time by drawing attention to the 19th century Japanese annexation of the northern island of Hokkaido lived in by Ainu people who were subject to internal displacement. Contemporary Ainu artist, Mayunkiki interprets many objects of Ainu culture alongside Soetsu and Leach’s self-conscious creation of a Mingei movement, with work that places the indigenous group back in a historic frame of reference (see last image of the carrousel below). The curators have been applauded in reviews for this critical stance.