Creating a New Museum: Keio Museum Commons Part 1—What Happens in a Creative "Vacant Lot"?

2020/10/22

This summer, a building with an eye-catching facade appeared on Mita-dori. This is the Keio University East Annex, the facility that will serve as the base for the Keio Museum Commons. While the white facade features panels and glass adorned with The Pen Mark forming a random grid, the campus side features a terrace decorated with greenery. This creates a sense of unity, connecting to the greenery of the Keio University Library (New Building), Jukukan-kyoku (Keio Corporate Administration), the Old University Library, and Fukuzawa Park.

The concept of the Keio Museum Commons (KeMCo), a new university museum that generates interaction, was detailed by Director Takami Matsuda in the March 2020 issue of this magazine. Six months have passed since then, and in addition to the development of the facilities, preparations for various activity programs are proceeding at a rapid pace.

Therefore, over the next seven months, we will present specific activities taking place at KeMCo under the title "Creating a New Museum." In this first installment, I would like to provide an overview of KeMCo's activities and their objectives, while also touching briefly on the new building.

University collections exist in an inseparable link with the university's educational and research activities, from collection and accumulation to subsequent utilization. At KeMCo, we aim to realize a nimble exhibition program that expresses the close relationship between education/research and cultural properties.

For example, showing related cultural properties at research events such as symposia, or creating small exhibitions that link course content with cultural properties—these types of exhibitions that connect ongoing education and research with cultural properties do not fit well into the schemes of ordinary museums, which typically decide exhibition plans years in advance.

To enable the parallel implementation of small-scale, short-term exhibitions, KeMCo has provided two small exhibition rooms on the exhibition floor and installed sliding walls to divide the space.

On the other hand, to accommodate large-scale exhibitions, walls in areas other than the exhibition space, such as the workshop room and conference room, were designed as exhibition walls as much as possible. Furthermore, we devised mechanisms for video projection and case displays (Sukima Installations) in small "gaps" such as the space under the stairs and work corridors. At the time of the grand opening in April 2021, we plan to provide experiences where visitors encounter works in various locations throughout the building, not just on the exhibition floor.

July 2020: The covers are removed, revealing the facade of the East Annex.

While museums are often perceived as synonymous with exhibitions, the investigation, research, and preservation of cultural properties are activities of equal richness. In museums, these activities are almost exclusively conducted in back-of-house areas such as storage rooms and are rarely seen by visitors. In recent years, examples of "Visible Storage," where works kept in storage are shown as they are, have been seen in Japan. However, KeMCo aims to go a step further from "showing the storage" to "showing the activities in the storage." Next to the stairs leading to the exhibition floor is a storage anteroom with full-length glass walls, where visitors can observe the diverse activities unfolding in the back-of-house.

The storage room connected to the anteroom is Keio University's first full-scale cultural property storage facility, housing cultural properties from a wide range of fields accumulated by the Juku. Furthermore, works donated from the Century Museum, renowned as a "Museum of Calligraphy," will also be stored here. Currently, ahead of the transfer of works from the Century Cultural Foundation, we are proceeding with research on the works in this substantial collection themed around writing culture.

Keio University's collections are not only displayed in exhibitions but are also utilized in education, including museum practice courses and classes utilizing rare books. Based on these practices, KeMCo is working on a new educational program called Object Based Learning (OBL). To put it simply, OBL is an educational theory that teaches how to learn about and accept diverse values through the observation and verbalization of works and sharing them with others. While it is gaining popularity in the UK and Australia, there are still few practical examples in Japan.

In 2019, KeMCo held the international symposium "The Power of Objects: Practices and Prospects of Object Based Learning," where we learned from preceding overseas examples and interacted with the international community.

We are also planning workshops where students and artists collaborate. As a prototype, we have been working with artist Kenji Yamada since 2019 on a project to turn the history and culture of Keio University into artworks through interviews with students, faculty, staff, and local residents, using the wooden "stickers" found throughout the Juku campus as a motif.

KeMCo is attempting to create an environment in digital space that connects and expands the programs introduced so far with various activities within and outside the Juku. The foundation for this is the Keio University Cultural Property Information Hub—a digital archive—constructed in cooperation with various departments within Keio that manage cultural properties.

This system, which is currently under development, is planned not only to link various cultural properties of the Juku but also to connect the Juku's collection with collections of domestic and international institutions by participating in international frameworks for information sharing, such as Linked Open Data and IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework).

The "KeMCo StudI/O" (formerly the "I/O Room") is established as a place to connect cultural properties existing in such digital spaces with real (analog) cultural properties. In this room, which combines digitization functions including 3D scanning with the ability to utilize digital data for fabrication using tools such as 3D printers, visitors can learn about the relationship between digital and analog through experience while being in close contact with exhibition and storage practices in the museum, and develop cross-media creativity.

What makes KeMCo StudI/O even more unique is the commissioned work by Enrico Isamu Oyama (graduate of the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies). Enrico Isamu Oyama is a contemporary artist active primarily in graffiti art and has a deep interest in artistic expression that crosses media. Because Mr. Oyama's interests overlapped with KeMCo's concept of bridging the digital and analog, he agreed to create a work that will serve as a symbol for KeMCo StudI/O and, by extension, KeMCo.

Thus far, I have provided a rather quick overview of KeMCo's activities. Starting next month, KeMCo staff members will take turns explaining each activity in detail.

By the way, the first exhibition in which KeMCo is involved as a "hub for cultural properties owned by the Juku" will open on October 26. In this online exhibition themed around "jinkan kosai (society)," 57 cultural properties from various Keio University collections will appear. Additionally, a one-week KeMCo preview event will be held online starting the same day. We would be grateful if you could check the latest information on the KeMCo website.