Beyond "Seeing / Being Seen / Showing": What the Exhibition "Ainu People and Expositions: 150 Years of Experience" (National Museum of Japanese History) Asks (Review: Yuko Yoshimoto)
The National Museum of Japanese History's exhibition on Ainu and expositions examines 150 years of their relationship.Summary
The exhibition "Ainu People and Expositions: 150 Years of Experience" is being held at the National Museum of Japanese History in Sakura, Chiba until November 29. It depicts the relationship between the Ainu and expositions over about 150 years, from the 1872 Yushima Seido Exposition to the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo. While expositions contributed to the formation of modern society, they were also sites for collecting, classifying, and hierarchizing people and objects; the Academic Anthropology Hall at the 1903 Fifth National Industrial Exposition famously featured "human displays" of Ainu, Okinawan, Korean, Taiwanese, Indian, Javanese, and other peoples. The exhibition's distinctive feature is that it does not merely view this history through the binary of "seeing/being seen," but highlights the experiences and relationships of diverse people involved in expositions. It reveals Ainu people not only as objects of display but also as subjects who sometimes "saw" others and engaged in "showing" their own culture. Reviewer Yuko Yoshimoto examines the layered experiences depicted, considers the exhibition's significance and challenges, and reflects on the role of museums today in light of this history.
(Source：Tokyo Art Beat)