Kohima, Sep 16 (PTI) More than four decades after Japanese ethnographic photographer and ethnologist Yuzo Morita travelled across Nagaland, the people, landscapes, traditions and everyday life he captured through his camera have returned to public view in the state.
Rare photographs from Morita’s extensive 1979 journey are being showcased in “Time Travel to Nagaland, 1979: A Japanese Photographer’s Record of Life and Tradition,” a four-day exhibition inaugurated at the State Museum of the Directorate of Art & Culture here.
The photographs offer more than a glimpse of Nagaland’s past. They provide a visual record of communities and traditions at a particular moment in the state’s history, allowing a younger generation to encounter aspects of life that have since changed, evolved or endured.
Advisor for Art & Culture and Treasuries & Accounts K Konngam Konyak, gracing the inaugural programme as special guest, described the exhibition as an opportunity to look back at Nagaland through Morita’s photographs and reconnect with the state’s cultural memory.
The exhibition is being organised by the Nagaland State Museum, Department of Art & Culture, in collaboration with the National Museum of Ethnology (NMoE), Osaka, Japan. It follows a statement of cooperation signed by the two institutions on August 5, 2025, aimed at strengthening cultural exchange, research, documentation and knowledge sharing.
The NMoE, popularly known as Minpaku, established in 1974, houses around 345,000 ethnological items from cultures and societies around the world. Among them are around 250 artefacts related to the Naga people, including shawls, necklaces, headdresses and other ornaments. Some were presented to Morita by people he met during his 1979 visit, officials said.
The programme saw the launch of the Database of Naga Collection at NMoE, Osaka, as well as the Digital Archives of Morita’s Photography Collection, opening wider access to the material for researchers, students and future generations.
Director, Art & Culture, Adela Moa, traced the initiative to discussions between the Department and NMoE on cooperation in Naga culture, exhibitions, documentation and academic research. Officials from Nagaland subsequently visited the Osaka museum, where they worked on identifying artefacts and contributed to developing the Naga collection database.
The process, she said, involved around six months of work and became an opportunity not only to document the past but also to strengthen cultural and academic ties between Nagaland and Japan.
For Emi Okada, Associate Professor at NMoE, speaking about the collaboration, Okada said Morita’s 1979 photographs had now been digitised and made available through the new archive. She hoped the exhibition would allow visitors to revisit the richness of Nagaland’s cultural life at the time while recognising traditions that continue to be cherished today. PTI NBS NBS RG
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