More than four decades after Japanese ethnographic photographer and ethnologist Yuzo Morita travelled across Nagaland, a collection of rare photographs from his 1979 journey is giving visitors an opportunity to revisit the state’s people, traditions, landscapes and everyday life of the period.
The photographs are being displayed at a four-day exhibition titled “Time Travel to Nagaland, 1979: A Japanese Photographer’s Record of Life and Tradition”, which was inaugurated at the State Museum of the Directorate of Art & Culture in Kohima on September 16.
The exhibition presents a visual record of Nagaland at a particular stage of its history, documenting communities, cultural practices and daily life. Some of the traditions captured by Morita have changed over the decades, while others continue to remain part of the cultural life of the state.
Advisor for Art & Culture and Treasuries & Accounts K Konngam Konyak, who attended the inauguration as the special guest, described the exhibition as an opportunity to look back at Nagaland through Morita’s photographs and reconnect with an important part of the state’s cultural memory.
The exhibition has been organised by the Nagaland State Museum, Department of Art & Culture, in collaboration with the National Museum of Ethnology (NMoE) in Osaka, Japan.
The initiative follows a statement of cooperation signed by the two institutions on August 5, 2025, with the objective of promoting cultural exchange, research, documentation and knowledge sharing between Nagaland and Japan.
Established in 1974, the NMoE, popularly known as Minpaku, houses around 345,000 ethnological objects representing cultures and societies from different parts of the world. Its collection includes around 250 artefacts associated with the Naga people, including shawls, necklaces, headdresses and other traditional ornaments.
Officials said some of these objects were presented to Morita by people he met during his journey through Nagaland in 1979. The artefacts and photographs together provide an additional record of the cultural interactions and traditions of the period.
The programme also witnessed the launch of the Database of Naga Collection at NMoE, Osaka, and the Digital Archives of Morita’s Photography Collection. The two initiatives are intended to make the material more accessible to researchers, students and future generations.
Director of Art & Culture Adela Moa said the initiative developed from discussions between the department and NMoE on cooperation in areas such as Naga culture, exhibitions, documentation and academic research.
As part of the collaboration, a team from Nagaland visited the Osaka museum and worked with officials to identify artefacts connected with the Naga people and contribute to the development of the Naga collection database.
Moa said the identification and documentation process took around six months. The exercise also provided an opportunity to strengthen cultural and academic links between Nagaland and Japan while creating a more organised record of Naga heritage preserved in the Japanese museum.
