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Kyoto University Museums Feature 7: The University Is a Treasure Box, Handcraft Gathering
27 objects from 17 Kyoto university museums, chosen around handcraft, mark the Kyoto University Museum Network's 15th year. WEST SQUARE Window Gallery.
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You walk along the basement window gallery past a 15 cm reflecting telescope, a Fushimi clay doll of Otafuku and a parlour karakuri automaton, and they all belong to one show. Kyoto has more than 30 universities, and the 17 museums of 16 of them have each sent something from their collections, 27 pieces in all, to mark their network's 15th year.
The shared theme is tewaza, handwork. Whatever the field or century, the organisers' point is that each piece carries someone's prayers or wishes. Some pieces are swapped on 20 November. Students of metal and lacquer crafts made a set of maki-e hanafuda cards, in the city where Nintendo started out making them.
Entry is free, in the WEST SQUARE Window Gallery on Miyako Messe's basement floor, 10:00 to 18:00 (last entry 17:30), closed 24 November and 7 December, until 20 December. A free symposium on 29 November (12:30 to 16:00, about 40 seats, no booking) includes a talk on the show.
Look for
A 15 cm reflecting telescope
Look for this instrument by Nishimura Seisakusho, the Kyoto firm that began selling Japanese-made reflecting telescopes with silvered glass mirrors in 1926, lent by Kyoto Sangyo University's Koyama Observatory.
Maki-e hanafuda
A deck of Japanese flower cards decorated in maki-e lacquer by metal and lacquer crafts students, from the Kyoto Traditional Crafts Hall.
A Tale of Genji altar cloth
An uchishiki, the cloth laid over a Buddhist altar table, pictured with scenes from The Tale of Genji, from the Kanda collection at Otani University Museum.
A parlour karakuri doll
A zashiki karakuri ningyo, a mechanical doll made to perform indoors, from the museum of Saga University of Arts.
A stupa-shaped reliquary
A container for sacred relics built in the form of a stupa, lent by Ryukoku University's Ryukoku Museum.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Locals Who've Seen It All
- Nerding Out
Skip if
You want one coherent subject: 27 objects from 17 museums share only the theme of handwork.
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Image credits
8
- Kyoto University Museums Feature 7: The University Is a Treasure Box, Handcraft GatheringCourtesy of Kyoto Museum of Crafts and Design
- 3rd Collection Gallery Exhibition 2026Courtesy of The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (MoMAK)
- Reflections in Jewellery: Memory and IdentityCourtesy of The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (MoMAK)
- Zen and GhibliCourtesy of Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art
- Kyoto Museum of Crafts and DesignAsturio Cantabrio / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (MoMAK)Wiiii / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Hosomi MuseumAsturio Cantabrio / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of ArtKakidai / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0