Two current shows in the North West and a recent symposium. Beneath the Great Wave: Hokusai and Hiroshige is at the Whitworth in Manchester until November. The exhibition is exhibits of two artists from the turn of the 18th century in Japan. Most of the exhibits are glorious ukiyo-e prints, woodblock prints that capture moments in time and travels as well as physical locations. I loved the rain and water depictions, and the sketchbooks are glorious.
Tenma Bridge in Settsu (c.1833–34) and Driving Rain at Nihonbashi (c.1832–39) by Katsushika Hokusai.
Sketchbook (c.1817–1819) by Katsushika Hokusai
Self-Defined. New Stories from Archives is at the Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool until 7 June. The exhibition is work from East (or Central) Europe about family stories and archives. The exhibition is curated by Viktoria Bavykina and Max Gorbatskyi who co-curated Net Making at La Biennale di Venezia in the Ukrainian pavilion in 2024.
Crimean Counter-Archive From Below, 2026, Crimea, Ukraine, by Emine Ziyatdin.
Death of Lucretia (Sviatohirsk School of Photography), 2026, Ukraine, by Andrii Dostliev.
The exhibition is a collection of work by four artists: Karolina Gembara, Emina Ziyatdin, Andrii Dostliev and Lia Dostlieva.
The Impact of Four Years of Warfare on Ukraine is the 2026 Petro Jacyk Symposium in Ukrainian Studies. This was an interdisciplinary event including scholarship from history and humanities, political science, demographic studies and economics.
I finished this week in Blackpool.
