Epson UK Ltd x Japan House London

Celebrating cultural ties, highlighting Japanese technology and engaging new audiences

Epson UK Ltd’s innovative technology has brought to life several of Japan House London’s exhibitions, enhancing the visitor experience and giving Epson a platform to highlight their technology and celebrate cultural ties with Japan.

Objectives

For Epson:

Demonstrate the vivid colours and high quality of Epson’s resin printer technology to stakeholders and visitors to the WAVE exhibition.
Showcase the high resolution of Epson projection technology in-situ to stakeholders and visitors to The Craft of Carpentry and Pictograms exhibitions.
Engage with new audiences.
Share Japanese brand heritage through involvement in exhibitions about contemporary Japan.

For Japan House:

Enhance the quality of the visitor experience.
Achieve the organizational goal of presenting the very best of Japanese art, design, innovation and technology to UK audiences and beyond.
Faithful presentation of exhibition content preserving the curators’ very specific vision and ensuring original works were reproduced with integrity.
Reduce the environmental impact of the exhibition.
Utilize new technology within Japan House London.
Financial efficiencies.

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How we worked together

WAVE (6 July – 22 October 2023)

As an existing Corporate Partner, Epson UK Ltd was approached by the Partnerships Team at Japan House London with a proposal to showcase their printing technology, through the medium of a graphic arts exhibition.

For Japan House London, the challenge was to reproduce, in large scale, the work of several renowned Japanese graphic artists, remaining as faithful as possible to the originals in terms of colour and resolution. Epson rose to the challenge straight away, using their expertise in supersize, high quality printing to select the most suitable Epson printer and medium for the job.

Their support of the exhibition comprised both technical support but also the production of four ‘super graphics’ (floor to ceiling images) using the SureColor SC-R5000 printer. The printing was challenging due to the size, colour gradation and richness of pigment, but the resulting prints from Epson were of the highest quality in terms of colour consistency, scratch-resistance and resolution. This quality was approved not only by the Japan House London Exhibitions Team but also by the Japanese curators of the WAVE exhibition.

Epson UK Ltd was credited on the exhibition wall as a supporter of the London exhibition, beside each ‘super graphic’, and additionally in the exhibition leaflet and Japan House London’s newsletters and several social media posts.

The Craft of Carpentry (12 March – 6 July 2025)

Following the success of the WAVE collaboration, a new mutually beneficial partnership activity was explored for The Craft of Carpentry exhibition. This time Epson was challenged with bringing to life the craft of wood joinery in an innovative way.

After several meetings with the Exhibitions Team and exhibition curator, Epson proposed the use of their compact high brightness, high resolution projectors. Five projectors were used to screen simple animations of wood joints on various surfaces throughout the lower ground floor, with an additional projector being used upstairs against a glass surface to screen video footage of a tree-felling ceremony, enabling Japan House London to achieve a multi-sensory, immersive presentation of a Japanese forest.

The size and weight of the projectors made them discreet and easy to install, and the quality of the projection meant that a consistently sharp image was achieved across various surfaces. The exhibition also provided a place where Epson’s stakeholders could see their projection technology in situ and where visitors to Japan House London could appreciate Japanese technology and innovation.

Epson UK Ltd was credited on the exhibition wall as a supporter of the Japan House London exhibition as well as in the exhibition flyer, and in a Japan House London newsletter and social media post.

Pictograms (29 July 2025 – 9 November 2025)

The Pictograms exhibition presented an additional opportunity to develop Japan House London’s ongoing collaboration with Epson.

For Pictograms, as part of telling the story of the power and future potential of pictograms, full-scale animated pictograms were created to demonstrate how moving images can deepen our understanding of an idea. As this exhibition was all about visual communication, the sharpest of images was necessary on a large scale. Working together with Epson, the Japan House London team was able to fully realize the collaborators’ specification and curatorial vison to a high standard. Short motion graphics and longer videos illustrating cultural customs in Japan which may be unfamiliar or complex, were projected from floor to ceiling. At full-scale, these moving graphics created an immersive experience for visitors to enjoy learning about various aspects of Japan’s cultures and understand more deeply their power as a visual language.

Epson UK Ltd was credited on the exhibition wall as a supporter of the Japan House London exhibition as well as in the exhibition flyer.

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Key outcomes

The outcomes of the partnership can be summarised as follows:

To date, over 403,000 visitors have experienced Epson technology within Japan House London’s exhibitions.
An average of 92% of visitors to these exhibitions learned something new about Japan or Japanese cultures
There were over 500,000 views of the exhibition pages on the Japan House London website detailing Epson’s support.
Details of the partnership were shared on the Epson EU website and Epson UK & I’s LinkedIn page.
Images and social media activity supported Epson’s wider pursuit for securing new business across live events and visitor attractions.
Several Epson employees were motivated to visit the exhibitions on their own time to indulge in the cultural heritage of Japanese innovation.
Japan House London was able to reduce the environmental impact of the abovementioned exhibitions through eco-friendly solutions such as the low-heat printing process, recyclability of prints and use of water-based inks and resin, as well as projector light optimization, reduced power consumption and energy efficiency.
Visitor Experience Assistants were able to explain about Epson’s large-scale printer to visitors, with several (including an employee of the University of Ottowa and a London-based artist) asking for specific details about the printing.

Visitor comments about WAVE:

‘The unique art displayed has aroused my interest in learning more about Japan’s culture and arts.’

‘Your displays really telegraphs the sophistication and beauty of Japan.’

‘The exhibition was of high quality and filled me with enthusiasm for Japan.’

Visitor Experience Assistant interactions from The Craft of Carpentry:

‘A visitor described the projection as ‘beautiful and meditative’, saying they hadn’t expected joinery to be so elegant.’

‘One person asked how the animations were made and who provided the projectors – they were “impressed by how seamless and clear everything looked”.’

‘Several returning visitors specifically mentioned the animated joinery projections as a reason they brought friends back to the exhibition.’

Visitor Experience Assistant interactions from Pictograms:

‘Children sit down with their parents in front of the videos… they copy the movements, they watch in silence, they discuss what they saw. It is already easy to see how (the projection of) video pictograms can effectively teach certain cultural behaviours in an effective and fun way.’

‘In the gallery, this lady started a conversation saying that the video on the large screen on the wall is very interesting and she learned a lot about the Japanese aspects she didn’t know before.’

‘Just an observation based on so many children visiting our gallery. They really engaged with the display and often ask their parents questions. One girl was very interested in the ‘3D walking human’ figures and asked her mum how would she show walking: What would be your movement? She asked. There was also a girl who danced to the videos of awa odori, and imitated movements from the Moving Pictograms Video. This exhibition seems to spark their curiosity.’

At Epson we are proud of our Japanese heritage, and the Japan House in London offers us a rare opportunity to mutually celebrate our cultural ties, in the UK, while engaging different audiences through events and other collaborations. The WAVE exhibition has been a great example of this, where we’ve been able to help Japan House explore the vibrant diversity of Japanese graphic arts while showing off the vivid colours and high quality of Epson’s resin printer technology.

Phil McMullin, Head of Sales for Commercial & Industrial at Epson UK

Epson was delighted to provide its high brightness and digital signage projectors to The Craft of Carpentry: Drawing Life from Japan’s Forests exhibition at Japan House London. Visitor attractions like this represent a significant market for projection technologies so we were only too pleased to demonstrate this public spectacle with a like-minded partner while celebrating our shared Japanese heritage.

Craig Waters, Sales Manager for Video Projection at Epson UK

About Epson UK Ltd

Epson is a global technology leader dedicated to co-creating sustainability and enriching communities by leveraging its efficient, compact, and precision technologies and digital technologies to connect people, things, and information. The company is focused on solving societal issues through innovations in home and office printing, commercial and industrial printing, manufacturing, visual and lifestyle. Epson will become carbon negative and eliminate use of exhaustible underground resources such as oil and metal by 2050.

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Corporate Membership at Japan House London

Since opening in 2018, Japan House London has worked with a diverse community of corporate partners, all united in their commitment to enabling Japan House London to present the very best of Japan.

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