Featured Events in Toyota in January, 2025 (June Updated)

A folk kiln (minyo) refers to a kiln in which tableware and tools used in daily life are fired, or the pottery itself. The founder of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum, Yanagi Muneyoshi (1889-1961), introduced tableware such as plates and bowls to concretely demonstrate the beauty of things that are considered "everyday use" and "poorly made." Furthermore, tableware made by his close friends Kawai Kanjiro and Hamada Shoji, who both led the Mingei movement, was used on the Yanagi family's dining table. This exhibition will introduce food-related pottery from the museum's collection, including pottery from folk kilns across the country, such as Seto ware from Aichi Prefecture, tableware by Kawai and Hamada, and hand-made works by contemporary artisans, including works selected for the Japan Folk Crafts Museum exhibition.

2023 will mark 10 years since washoku (traditional Japanese cuisine) was registered as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage. Washoku is gaining more and more attention around the world, and this exhibition will introduce washoku from multiple perspectives, including science and history, along with a wide variety of specimens and materials. We will explore the charms of washoku, which may seem familiar but is surprisingly unknown, from the diverse ingredients nurtured by the nature of the Japanese archipelago, to the techniques born from the wisdom and ingenuity of people, to historical changes and even the future.

Basically, only one installation will be on display at this exhibition. A huge object that is neither architecture, nor a structure, nor even a three-dimensional work or sculpture, will penetrate the distinctive exhibition space of the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art. The installation will appear in various forms in the exhibition room, which changes from moment to moment with the shifting of the sunlight. In this unknown territory, where the various scales and standards of everyday life are temporarily suspended and shifted, we will be forced to reexamine the very act of experiencing something in space and time.