Creating a New Museum: Keio Museum Commons Vol. 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 that connects to the Keio University Library (New Building), Jukukan-kyoku (Keio Corporate Administration), the Old University Library, and the greenery of Fukuzawa Park.

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

Therefore, starting this month, we will present a seven-part series titled "Creating a New Museum," where the staff in charge will share specific activities taking place at KeMCo. 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 symposiums, 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.

At KeMCo, to enable the simultaneous implementation of small-scale, short-term exhibitions, we have 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, we have designed walls in non-exhibition spaces, such as practical training rooms and conference rooms, to serve as exhibition surfaces whenever possible. We have also devised a system (Sukima Installation) that allows for video projections and case displays in small "gaps" such as the space under 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 East Annex facade is revealed after the coverings were removed.

While museums are often equated with exhibitions, the investigation, research, and preservation of cultural properties possess a richness equal to that of exhibitions. In museums, these activities are mostly 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 a full glass wall, where visitors can observe the diverse activities unfolding in the back-of-house area.

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 extensive collection themed around writing culture.

Keio University's collections are not only displayed in exhibitions but are also utilized in education, including museum practice and classes utilizing rare books. Based on these practices, KeMCo will work 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 spreading 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" standing here and there on the Juku grounds 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 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 known as 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 functions for creating works using digital data and tools such as 3D printers, visitors can learn about the relationship between digital and analog through experience while being in close contact with the practice of exhibition and storage 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 mainly in graffiti art and has a deep interest in artistic expression that crosses media. Since Mr. Oyama's interests and KeMCo's concept of bridging digital and analog overlapped, he agreed to produce a work that will serve as a symbol for KeMCo StudI/O and, by extension, KeMCo.

So far, I have provided a rather quick overview of KeMCo's activities. Starting next month, KeMCo staff 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 appreciate it if you could check the latest information on the KeMCo website.