VALUABLE
SHIPMENTS Handle
with
care
IAG Cargo’s Secure product was enlisted by the British Museum this year to fly
precious Japanese artwork 9,000 miles from Tokyo to London.
From May to August this
year the British Museum
played host to the largest
exhibition of Manga ever to
take place outside of Japan.
Over 200 individual pieces
of art were transported to
London for the exhibition,
including Manga novels,
magazines and illustrations, as
well as a giant 17 metre by 4
metre theatre curtain, painted
in 1880 by Kawanabe Kyosai
– with this trip to be its last
outside of Japan.
The exhibition would not
have been possible without
the efforts of IAG Cargo, the
British Museum’s exclusive
logistics partner since 2015,
which was called upon to fly
the precious cargo under its
Secure product.
Co-ordination key
IAG Cargo is no stranger to
shipments of this nature,
explains Head of Product,
Daniel Johnson. “We move
works of art and artefacts on a
regular basis but for these types
of larger movements, like for
the British Museum, we’ve done
one or two a year since 2015
when that partnership started.”
A project like this
necessitates precise coordination
and brings with it
high levels of accountability,
he continues. “We transported
about 235 different pieces that
were on loan from 45 different
artists and a lot of those pieces
would be deemed priceless
because of their unique and
rare value. The large 17 metre
curtain is considered a national
WHAT IS MANGA?
Manga is an historic Japanese artform of storytelling through pictures and line, read
from back to front and from the upper right corner to the lower left corner of the page.
Manga’s roots can be traced back as far as 1200AD but the form we recognise in the
comic books of today first emerged in cartoon strips in magazines and newspapers
in the 1920s, according to IFAC Handa Curator of Japanese Arts, Nicole Rousmaniere.
Throughout the twentieth century its popularity grew to achieve global reach and
today manga is a multi-billion dollar industry, also encompassing anime, fashion,
gaming and merchandise, with globally recognised characters like Eel Dog, Dragon Ball
and the world-famous Pokémon.
Manga, which translates as ‘pictures run riot’, is a powerful medium used to
address a spectrum of social and political themes, from sexual identity
to living with radiation in the aftermath of Hiroshima. “Manga’s
power is amazing,” asserts Rousmaniere. “Manga
isn’t always happy. In fact, it’s often not.
But it’s always cathartic – the artist
expressing themselves. It’s
a very interactive
medium.”
www.airlogisticsinternational.com October 2019 45
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