Dimapur: A photography exhibition documenting Nagaland’s cultural heritage and way of life was opened at the Museum Annexe courtyard in Kohima on Wednesday.Titled ‘Time Travel to Nagaland, 1979: A Japanese Photographer’s Record of Life and Tradition’, the exhibition features photographs taken by Japanese ethnographic photographer Yuzo Morita during his visit to the state in 1979.The exhibition, organised in collaboration with National Museum of Ethnology (NMoE), Osaka, also featured the launch of the database of the Naga collection housed at the museum and the digital archives of Morita’s photography collection.Inaugurating the exhibition, adviser to art and culture and treasuries and accounts K Konngam Konyak said the exhibition offered an opportunity to look back at Nagaland through the photographs of Morita. He said the photographs documented Nagaland’s people, traditions, everyday life, landscapes and cultural practices more than four decades ago, serving as valuable records of the state’s cultural memory.Emi Okada, associate professor at NMoE, said she first visited Nagaland in 2012 and was impressed by the state’s traditional singing and distinctive musical culture. She said the museum houses around 250 artefacts related to the Naga people and that the two institutions had been working together on research, exhibitions and documentation of the Naga collection. She said photographs taken by Morita during his 1979 visit had been digitised and made available through a new digital archive.Commissioner and secretary, art and culture, Bodeno S Colo said the exhibition followed a statement of cooperation signed on Aug 5, 2025, between NMoE and Nagaland State Museum.
