Cultural Associations

The several cultural associations that promote artistic and cultural exchanges between the Emilia-Romagna Region and the Asian continent

The main goal of the Cultural Association NipPop, founded in 2013 and based in Bologna, is to bring Japanese contemporary culture in Italy through a series of events, workshops, exhibitions and conferences with internationally-renown artists and experts. At the same time, through its webpage, NipPop targets students and people who are fond of the Japanese culture - as well as people who are interested in movies, literature, and art - by offering news and analysis about several aspects of the Japanese culture, with a view to establishing new trends in the analysis of Japanese contemporary pop culture. Every year, the Cultural Association NipPop organizes a three-day festival in Bologna dedicated to the promotion of Japanese pop culture.

Nipponica was founded in 2005 during the EU-Japan People-to-People Exchange Year promoted by the European Union and the Japanese government. It is a festival on Japanese culture organized by the Cultural Association Symballein, based in Bologna. It is a focal point for Italy-Japan bilateral relations and it promotes events about Japanese culture and society, through cinema, music, theatre, literature, tradition, new trends, pop culture, innovative technologies and tourism.

The Far Eastern Art Study Centre (CSAEO) was founded in 1987, on the initiative of scholars and art collectors, with the purpose of spreading and popularizing in Bologna and in Italy the rich artistic and cultural legacy of China, Korea and Japan. The CSAEO holds a open library that contains several books upon classic figurative arts, as well as contemporary East Asian art. With a view to promoting knowledge on East Asian figurative arts, the CSAEO has organized several exhibitions in the past. Among the most important ones, since 2014 CSAEO has held a permanent exhibition of its own art collection in Palazzo Poggi, Bologna.

Takamori is a not-for-profit cultural association, which aims to spread knowledge and interest about the Japanese film industry in Italy, through interlinguistic subtitles, shows, workshops, and training courses. Since 2014, Takamori has an agreement with the Department of Modern Languages, Literature, and Cultures of the University of Bologna for the training of students in the field of Japanese language teaching and audiovisual translation from Japanese. Moreover, Takamori organizes the Japanese Film Selection festivals, in collaboration with Circuito Cinema Bologna (CCB). Movies proposed by Takamori have not been distributed by the Italian film industry, but have received the attention of both critics and audience in Japan. As they are not dubbed, they are shown in the original language and with professional subtitles in Italian. Currently, Takamori's interlinguistic subtitle database counts more than 130 full-length movies translated into Italian.