In Kyoto’s Higashiyama Ward, the Kyoto National Museum was established to collect, house and display cultural treasures to preserve valuable national history. Taking a short walk in the neighborhood, past the Four Seasons Hotel, you’ll find a small sign that reads “Stay Shop Dine Maana Kiyomizu, POJ Studio, Cafe & Bar.” If a person were to follow this sign, they’d have to wander down a …
Artist Rachel Maclean’s Haunted Toy Store in Scotland’s Jupiter Artland In the forests of Jupiter Artland—the 120-acre outdoor sculpture park near Edinburgh—Scottish artist Rachel Maclean installed an eerie, graffiti-covered toy store with upside-down attributes aplenty. The sinister structure houses unsettling doppelgänger dolls, as well as Maclean’s new 10-minute animated film, which explores the pressures upon youth (from self-esteem to consumerism and predatory behavior) through the …
Kyoto’s defunct Nintendo Uji Ogura Plant will host the Japanese video game company’s forthcoming museum, tentatively named Nintendo Gallery. The site, constructed in 1969, used to produce playing cards and Hanafuda (a traditional card game, referred to as “the battle of the flowers”). The company—whose hardware includes Game Boy, Wii and Switch, and whose games range from Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong and Legend of Zelda to …
