Dogu: Spirits of Clay.

Context: This project will research prehistoric Eurasian figurines in the British Museum (BM) and the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts (SCVA) leading to two temporary exhibitions and associated publications. The project draws on a research network of Japanese and European specialists who have been meeting over the past two years to develop a new agenda for Eurasian figurine studies. Bringing together university-based scholars with Museum specialists from the UK and elsewhere, a new understanding of figurines will be fostered, based on detailed formal and contextual study in a broad comparative framework. This new understanding will be disseminated to the wider academic community and the general public through a series of outputs, including the exhibitions, associated publications and symposia, public programming and broad media coverage.

Prehistoric ceramic figurines represent an important expression of early human creativity. They reveal much about how their makers viewed themselves as human beings and their relationship with the worlds they inhabited, their beliefs in the supernatural, and the importance of clothes, coiffure and body ornamentation in early societies. In addition, they are often used in contemporary attempts to establish or confirm modern cultural identity through association with distinctive objects from the past. This will be the first exhibition dedicated to prehistoric figurines in UK.

Aims and objectives: This project will bring some examples from the two most important Eurasian figurine traditions (Jomon Japan, 16,000-2500 years ago) and the Neolithic Balkans (8500-4500 years ago) to the UK for the first time, complementing existing collections at the BM and SCVA. Two exhibitions are planned. The first will be an exhibition of important Jomon figurines. This will be the first such exhibition dedicated to these objects, and has already generated such interest that it is expected that the exhibition will also be shown at the Tokyo National Museum.

The second exhibition will provide an international context for these prehistoric Jomon objects, setting Jomon figurines beside important examples of other Eurasian Neolithic ceramic figurines (from the Russian Far East, China and Central Europe), with particular emphasis on the very significant but little known collections from the central Balkans (in particular Albania, Macedonia and Kosova).

The exhibitions will be preceded by two research visits will take place, to Japan and the Balkans, during which leading UK, Japanese and Balkan specialists will visit each other's sites, museums and collections, and local seminars will be held, establishing a new standard for figurine studies worldwide. Materials from these study visits will be incorporated into the exhibitions.

The SCVA exhibition will incorporate an artist's residency to develop new expressions of the relationship between contemporary audiences and figurines. At the BM, the Asahi Room close to the entrance of the Museum will be made available for a commissioned piece by a major contemporary artist, expressing his/her response to the prehistoric Jomon figurines.

Applications and benefits: The project will engage both scholars and the general public in broader questions about the past, and the role of the past in the present. The results of the research project will be disseminated through associated public programming developed and delivered in association with the Education Department of the BM and the Education and Research Section of the SCVA, both of which have extensive experience of such programmes.

The project will establish a new research context for existing collections of figurines in the UK. It will also consolidate an existing research network and reinforce collaboration between the BM, SCVA and Sainsbury Institute, paving the way for further joint working.