Frau Tomoe I.M. Steineck

I am an established curator/historian of art and culture specialised in theory of culture, collection strategy and religious heritage, with geographical focus on Japan. A graduate of SOAS – University of London, I have worked with the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Tokyo National Museum, the University of Zurich Museum of Ethnography, several galleries and auction houses, and independent exhibition projects as well as private collectors. My main projects up to 2016 are the two large Japan exhibitions at the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Fed. Rep. of Germany: Soul and Beauty of Japan (2003) and Temple Treasures of a Sacred Mountain. Daigo-ji - The Secret Buddhism in Japan (2008). In 2014, I guest-curated the exhibition Tokens of the Path, introducing the Wilfrid Spinner (-Minami) Collection of the Ethnographic Museum to the public. I am active in the field of Digital Humanities, assessing Japanese religious collections around Europe in major museums from the British Museum to the Corfu Museum of Asian Art. All projects were documented in publications, films, and catalogues. I keep my passion for Buddhist art whilst also venturing into the field of historic investigation of Imperial science and the formative Western gaze on Japanese collections today. I am working on my PhD degree and publication since 2015 at the University of Tübingen on the topic: “Empirical Disengagement. Strategies of Understanding Religion in the Age of Imperialist Missions”.