Crafted Japan
Museo Vela 2019
English, Italian and German translations of the exhibition catalogue and audioguides by Scriptum
The exhibition encompasses over 200 Japanese objects in various media, including ceramics, wood, textiles, and lacquer. These remarkable objects belong to one of the largest and most important collections of Japanese folk craft outside of Japan. The collection, based in Ticino, is the fruit of over 50 years of intensive research and collecting activities. Besides showing a great display of beautiful and rarely seen artefacts, ranging from the Yayoi period (1st century B.C.) until the 20th century, the exhibition highlights important aspects of the influential Japanese Mingei (folk art) movement, which developed in Japan through vital political and cultural influences during the 1920s. For the viewers, this exhibition, conceived by this key Swiss federal museum, enables the discovery of rarely seen aspects of Japan, in which aesthetics and «interpreted traditions» pervaded many aspects of everyday life. October the 13th 2019 – March the 8th 2020