The exhibition 'Kawaii: crafting the Japanese culture of cute' brought together a group of Japanese artists who used traditional craft skills to translate, comment upon and engage with all aspects of kawaii. The exhibition contained works that were humorous, beautiful and dark. In approach some of the works reflected kawaii's commercial appeal, other works alluded to the transgressive and exploitative nature of sexual politics. And some reclaimed a much earlier meaning of kawaii as something beautiful that fits within the palm of the hand. The exhibition combined the seemingly opposing elements of the crafts and popular culture to develop a UK forum for the exploration of the cultural impact of contemporary crafts. This interpretive translation of kawaii offered contemporary craft practice as a pro-active link between popular culture, sub-culture and tradition.

Sixteen artists were selected and many made new work for the exhibition. The range of work covered included: textiles, urushi, ceramics, washi, ohigashi, glass, mixed media and the scale of the works ranged from the tiny to the large scale installation. The project intended to develop the themes of the exhibition between artists and audiences from different countries and cultural backgrounds. With this intention, the presence of many of the artists at various educational events provided vital insight and connections. The target audience represented an outstanding opportunity to introduce and develop a new audience for contemporary craft. The Japanese artists taking part ranged from highly internationally acclaimed artists, established artists and early career artists who have not shown in the UK before.

The catalogue was designed to specifically reflect the nature of the exhibition with full colour images throughout. Each of the artists contributed an answer to the question; what does kawaii mean to you? Their responses were printed in both English and Japanese. There are also three essays on the subject: from the exhibition curator Professor Lesley Millar; from Jessica Litherland, the Senior Exhibitions Officer (and kawaii afficianado) at the partner venue, Rugby Art Gallery and Museum; and from the Japanese independent journalist with specialist knowledge of the subject, Mikako Sawada; these were also reproduced in Japanese and English.

The exhibition opened at the University for the Creative Arts on 29 October 2015. Prior to the exhibition, one of the artists, Minako Nishiyama, undertook a two week residency at UCA during which time she created her work for the exhibition and gave demonstrations for the students and the public. The materials (sugar paste) were sponsored by Squires Kitchen, a local firm specialising in decorative sugar work. Her presentations made a deep impact on her audiences. She spoke eloquently and very knowledgably about the place occupied by kawaii in contemporary Japanese culture. In particular she is concerned with the sexualisation of young girls. Her workshops with the sugar paste were attended by craft specialists, sugar decoration specialists and Kawaii enthusiasts.

The artists GBN and Chika Ohgi also gave presentations about their work. Four of the visiting Japanese artists plus the curator presented their work and took part in a conference at the Japan Foundation, London, on 30 October 2015. The audience was drawn from a wide range of interest groups, which was the intention of the exhibition - to introduce kawaii to new audiences who are interested in traditional crafts and to introduce tradition crafts to new audiences who are interested in kawaii. During the exhibition run at UCA there were six curators' tours, two seminars and four artist presentations all of which drew a similar mixed audience with ages ranging from young children to the very elderly.

The exhibition then toured to Rugby Art Gallery and Museum, opening on 1 February 2016. At this venue participating artist Mikiko Minewaki was artist in residence running two workshops. There was a weekend of kawaii-related activities including a Cosplay competition and catwalk organised in collaboration with Rugby Manga Cafe. There were school and college visits with accompanying workshops and two curator's tours. In total there were fourteen formal educational events and many more informal ones.

The outstanding observation at both venues was that the exhibition was never without visitors - many visiting more than once. Overall the visitor numbers were: 10,960.