Miniatures Bring Hidden Worlds Alive at Tokyo Cultural Site
By Sakurako Nakagawa
Tokyo, Jan. 24 (Jiji Press)--An exhibition of various kinds of miniatures is currently being held at a cultural property site on the premises of Hotel Gajoen Tokyo, featuring crafts from 17 artists and collectors.
"The appeal of miniatures, including the fun of seeing familiar things on a smaller scale as well as the world of elaborate technology and playful spirit, transcends time and borders with the power to captivate people," Hotel Gajoen said.
The event began last week and will run through March 9 at the historic Hyakudan Kaidan wooden building, a Tokyo metropolitan government-designated tangible cultural property.
Hotel Gajoen, a wedding hall-hotel complex in Tokyo's Meguro Ward, has been holding annual exhibitions of "hina" traditional Japanese dolls at the Hyakudan Kaidan building to celebrate the "hinamatsuri" Girls' Day on March 3.
This year's event focuses on miniature crafts, which are showcased in the seven traditional Japanese-style rooms, alongside the antique miniature hina doll collection of Yumiko Kawauchi, a researcher for hina furnishings.
"The Japanese word 'hina' means small, and this year's exhibition is themed on miniatures and a wide range of small artworks," Kei Yunoki, director of sales planning at Hotel Gajoen, explained.
"People imagine different things from miniatures, such as dollhouses and tiny food samples. Visitors can see a variety of artists' imaginations," Yunoki added.
Antique miniature hina dolls and furnishings collected by Kawauchi, including a set of dolls from the late Edo period (1603-1868), are on display in the Seisui room.
"The most interesting thing is to compare the miniature hina furnishings with their real-life counterparts," Kawauchi said. "Most of the hina furnishings are a small version of popular furnishings in the houses of 'daimyo' feudal lords," she added.
"However, if you look closely, you will notice that there are some items that only exist in miniature," she said.
"I'm often amazed at the creativity of past artists and the efforts of people to preserve such fragile crafts for centuries, so I hope to pass on them to the next generation."
In the Sokyu room, various dioramas of cities in Japan and fictional landscapes are showcased, including a diorama of a landscape from famous animated movie "Spirited Away," created by Japanese anime powerhouse Studio Ghibli Inc.
"One of the fun things in creating dioramas is to capture different timelines in a single work," said Masahiro Akiyoshi, a teacher at Chiba Keizai University's model club, which made the work.
"After making the base with miniature art kits, we added a railroad and other items that appear in the movie, and this idea enabled us to portray different scenes in one work," Akiyoshi emphasized. "We expect visitors to take a look at the detailed reproduction of the world of the movie."
Some artworks are designed to depict the world of miniatures from different perspectives, including a work by creator Mizuki Takamatsu.
"In this work, many episodes from some 90 years of the Hyakudan Kaidan's history are captured in a single, dense painting, including scenes of movie star Charlie Chaplin enjoying tempura, writer Osamu Dazai being inspired to write a new novel, and wedding ceremonies and class reunions of nameless people," she said.
"Visitors can see these episodes by watching people in the work, just as same as watching miniatures," Takamatsu said.
One of the highlights of the exhibition is the Summit room, which is decorated with giant flowers made of urethane or thick paper, allowing visitors to become a part of a miniature world as they enter.
"I decorated the room as the start of fairy tale 'Alice in Wonderland' in a Japanese style," giant flower art designer MEGU said. In a scene of the story, Alice became very small on her journey to Wonderland.
Decorating a historic building for the first time, she focused on creating an immersive experience for visitors by not only depicting the characters in Alice through giant flowers, but also using fragrance and music as they have entered a fairyland.
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