About me

I am a Docent/Associate Professor at the Department of Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies of the Stockholm University. I specialize in arts and material culture of Japan.

Education

• Ph.D. in Japanese History of Art ( summa cum laude) , Gakushūin University, Tokyo, Japan (2003-2008)
• M.A. in Japanese Studies, The Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland (1997-2002)
• M.A. in History of Art, The Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland (1993-1998)

Employment

• University Lecturer (universitair docent), Leiden Institute for Area Studies, The Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands (2011-2017)
• Affiliated Researcher, The Department of Oriental Languages, The Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden (2010/11)
• Curator, The Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, Sweden (2008/2009)
• Curator, The Department of Far Eastern Art, The National Museum in Kraków, Poland (1999-2008)

Teaching

My teaching encompasses the following subjects: the art and visual culture of Japan across genres and periods; popular culture; print culture and poetry pictorialization; gender; art theory, etc. 

Research

As an art historian, I am interested in interdisciplinary approaches that intersect visual arts and social and intellectual history, focusing especially on the role of visuality in collective representation, gender and nationalism. Currently my main research projects pertain to socially engaged artistic practices and the relationships between images of nature and environmental consciousness in Japan and East Asia.  I am also interested in the applications of digital technologies to the study of cultural artifacts and historical processes; and the potential transformative effects that data science hold for the discipline of art history in general.

 

Monographs and edited volumes

• Visual Genesis of Japanese National Identity: Hokusai’s Hyakunin isshu. Brussels: P.I.E-Peter Lang, 2009.
• Too Pretty to Throw Away: Packaging Design from Japan, Machotka E. & Cwiertka K. Krakow: Museum of Japanese Art and Technology, 2016. [open access] 
• Consuming Life in Post-Bubble Japan: Transdisciplinary Perspective. University of Amsterdam Press, 2017, eds. Machotka E. & Cwiertka K. [open access]

Grants & Awards

• The Modern East Asia Research Centre (MEARC), 2013-16
• The College Women's Association of Japan, 2009-2011
• The Mitsubishi Foundation, 2006/2007
• The Ukiyo-e Ota Memorial Museum of Art, 2004/2005
• The Japan Arts Foundation, 2003/2004
• The Japanese Ministry of Education, 2002-2006
• The Toshiba International Foundation, 2002