In this series, we introduce the people who work at the National Center for Art Research (NCAR). This fourth installment focuses on the Social Cooperation Group and its initiatives in the areas of “connecting” and “expanding,” which are part of NCAR’s mission of “Connecting, Deepening, and Expanding Art.”
(Photo, clockwise from lower right: Kitamura Mana, Takata Mao, Koike Hiromi, Handa Juri, Deputy Director and Social Cooperation Group Leader Harada Mayumi, and Sakata Yukari)
Social Cooperation Group activities run along three axes
The mission of the Social Cooperation Group is to expand and create new possibilities for museums by building partnerships with corporations and other organizations. To connect people with museums in a variety of ways, enriching the museum experience, the group carries out its activities along three axes: partnerships with corporations and organizations, art programs for corporations and organizations, and museum awareness surveys. We spoke with the members of the group about the three axes.
Building bridges between businesses and museums
What can be done to help people from the private sector feel closer to art museums and expand their opportunities to experience art? The main premise of this question is that doing so benefits both businesses and museums.
Group Leader Harada Mayumi explains the role of the Social Cooperation Group.
“Museums need to have a broader range of stakeholders (those providing support and encouragement) than ever before so that they can address social issues and sustain their activities. Up to now, museums and businesses (and businesspeople) have had limited contact, and in many cases they simply did not understand how to approach each other. The Social Cooperation Group connects museums with businesses that are interested in the potential of museums and want to partner with museums, and it is responsible for everything from the planning and coordination of new projects to their execution.”
Here, we will introduce the group’s initiatives, including examples of the kind of businesses that the group has teamed up with to create collaborative museum programs.
Support from corporations that relate to museum activities
Located in Tokyo’s Ginza district, GINZA SIX is one of the largest commercial complexes in the area. It is an extremely art-friendly facility. For example, there is an atrium in the middle of the building that rises from the second to the fifth floor, and artists display their works in this atrium space for set time spans, elevating spirits throughout the facility.
GINZA SIX has sponsored a school program offered by the National Art Center, Tokyo (NACT) since 2023. The program was called Kayo bijutsukan (Tuesday at the NACT). Students from nearby schools were invited to visit on the day NACT is closed, giving children the opportunity to appreciate works of art without having to think about other visitors. We talked to Kitamura Mana, who played a role in connecting GINZA SIX with NACT.
Tuesday at the NACT held in 2024 during Henri Matisse – Forms in Freedom at the National Art Center, Tokyo.
“The people at GINZA SIX have always engaged in cultural programs and similar activities with the aim of providing opportunities for learning that foster essential creativity through art. They related to the Tuesday at the NACT program, so they decided to become involved in the form of lending support. We are still in communication to see if we can work together on some sort of future project.”
In the second year of the Tuesday at the NACT collaboration (2024), children were able to not only view the exhibition, but also try making art in workshops led by an artist. The event was held before the exhibition opened (October 30–December 16, 2024) of Ei Arakawa-Nash: Paintings Are Popstars, a solo exhibition by a performance artist. Ei Arakawa-Nash, the exhibiting artist, offered a workshop in which the children created a giant 100-meter-long painting, and also a program that allowed children to experience his participatory piece Mega Please Draw Freely along with him in the exhibition gallery.
“GINZA SIX is a business that puts much effort into art, so they decided to collaborate with NACT because they wanted an opportunity to learn about art, although I think they were being a bit modest.”
A Shimajiro experience for children
The National Crafts Museum has also launched an educational program as a “partnership with corporations and organizations.” The partner in this collaboration is Benesse Corporation, which operates mainly in the education sector. The company’s educational television program for young children, Shimajiro: A World of WOW! , has a segment called “WOW of Art!!” which shows children the joy of art. Shimajiro is a character who loves discovering and experiencing new things, so as part of this project his visit to the National Crafts Museum was made into a segment for the show. (“WOW of Art!! National Crafts Museum” (in Japanese only))
We spoke with Kitamura Mana, who was responsible for coordinating the project.
“When we were working out the content for the program segments, my role was translating the language used by Benesse and the National Crafts Museum. Businesses and museums have different sorts of environments. In Social Cooperation, our job is to understand the differences between businesses and museums and fine tune these collaborations. In this instance we were able to tie the content that Benesse wanted to bring to children through the television show together with what the National Crafts Museum wanted to share with children about the appeal of crafts.”
The program was one form of project output, and we were able to broadcast a segment that showed Shimajiro viewing and enjoying many works at the National Crafts Museum. But the collaboration didn’t end with just the broadcast of the show. The segment in which Shimajiro visits the National Crafts Museum was produced as a “partnership with corporations and organizations” involving Benesse Corporation and the National Crafts Museum. This was followed by an art program for corporations and organizations, which is the Social Cooperation Group’s second axis for activities. Businesses and museums have worked together to create art programs for the general public.
“A curator from the National Crafts Museum suggested that if children could actually experience the things that Shimajiro experiences on the show it would be a very meaningful outcome for this collaboration. When I told Benesse about this, they agreed to cooperate, and the museum was able to conduct a hands-on parent-child Touch & Talk program based on the Shimajro television segment.”
©Benesse Corporation/Shimajiro “Shimajiro” is a registered trademark of Benesse Corporation.
Benesse provided illustrations and puppets of Shimajiro in preparation for the event, and the program video was also screened during the event. The release of the “WOW of Art!! National Crafts Museum” segment on YouTube was also timed to coincide with the event schedule. The event was held twice, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, and the capacity of sixty people was reached shortly after registration opened.
“On the day of the event the museum set up artworks made of ceramics and metal that visitors could touch, and they enjoyed being able to actually touch the artworks. The event showed children in an easy-to-understand way that the crafts were made from the same materials that are around them all the time, like rice bowls and spoons. I think that we were also able to introduce people to the idea that the National Crafts Museum exhibits crafts made from these familiar materials.”
The Social Cooperation Group also engages in projects outside of the field of learning such as collaborating with companies using digital technology as a hook. It has also produced a video entitled Shake Hands – Business × Museum Expanding Future (in Japanese only) which presents examples of various collaborations with comments from company representatives.
Bringing the creativity of artists to working adults
The second axis of the Social Cooperation Group’s activities is “art programs for corporations and organizations,” an initiative to develop and provide programs that activate museum resources to increase the contact between corporations and organizations on the one hand and museums on the other. As in the Benesse example mentioned above, the group not only creates programs in collaboration with businesses, but it also develops programs in which participants belong to corporations and organizations. One such program is “Artist Workshops for Business,” a collaboration between NCAR and the National Art Center, Tokyo (NACT) .
Takata Mao, who is in charge of this project, talked to us about the history of this project.
“NACT has a record of hosting more than one hundred workshops for the general public with artists as instructors. We started talking about how we could leverage this ability to plan workshops for corporations and organizations. At the outset, we thought that by inviting cutting-edge artists as instructors and taking advantage of the know-how developed at NACT, we might be able to devise programs for businesspeople that would provide the kinds of experiences, learning, and new awareness that are unique to art museums.
In 2024, we invited artist Nagare Manika to facilitate a workshop for Bridgestone Corporation employees titled Colors of Japan. Along with developing their understanding of contemporary art through Nagare’s presentation about her practice and works, workshop participants also learned about Japan’s color culture. Afterwards, they tried creating their own works of art while considering the relationship between their own memories, visions, and color.
Around twenty-five people applied and participated in the workshop. They included people in technical and research positions as well as people involved in administration and management. It seemed that they enjoyed tasks like cutting colored sheets with utility knives and spraying water with misters, things that we rarely do as adults. I sensed that in terms of the atmosphere and communication among employees, it was something different from the usual workplace. After the workshop, some participants who had said that they were just not good at art commented that they were glad they had participated, making this a very meaningful project for us as well.”
Envisioning the future of museums in collaboration with society
In 2015, The National Museum of Art began conducting museum awareness surveys, which now constitute the third axis of the Social Cooperation Group’s activities. An online survey is conducted each year in the Kanto and Kansai areas to gather information such as how often people visit art museums and how they find out about exhibitions. By publishing key data extracted from the aggregated results, this initiative offers information that serves as a useful reference for museums and various types of cultural activities.
Group Leader Harada Mayumi talked about NCAR’s activities in the two years since it was established in March 2023.
“Once a project is completed, it’s important to understand exactly what the partner business or businesses felt about it, and to properly use that feedback for the next project. This is necessary for the group and for the entire organization. Once NCAR got off the ground, we received some unexpected reactions that revealed some unimagined possibilities, so I think that it’s all about connecting those insights to the next thing as we move ahead.”
“Social cooperation” is still a new area for museums, and all three people agreed that the two years spent trying to bring about projects that benefit both businesses and museums have been a process of trial and error. As it built a track record, the Social Cooperation Group only recently came to explain its activities in terms of these three axes.
Takata and Kitamura had the following to say.
“When I talk to people from companies that are interested in museum art programs, I get the sense that many of them want to step away from the way business has been done up to now in order to face the challenges of modern society, and they are looking for ways to make this happen. I can’t say specifically how companies or individuals will change by participating in museum workshops, but I think that art is uncharted territory for them, and that there are museums that would be good partners for corporations and other organizations to collaborate with. Bearing this in mind, I’d like to play a role in bringing companies and museums together.” (Takata)
“A museum director who I respect told me that he wants people to see going to a museum as an everyday thing. I think that there is a wonderful future for museums—places with works of art and researchers with knowledge about them—in society. People visit them with various needs, and they react in all sorts of ways. By increasing the volume of partnerships with corporations and organizations, we hope to increase the variety of these everyday experiences.” (Kitamura)
Particularly in Japan, many museums only employ curators, who are engaged in research and exhibition planning, and administrative staff. So the reality is that curators have to handle a variety of tasks, including public relations and partnerships with corporations and organizations. To alleviate this situation, the Social Cooperation Group handles the role of connecting museums with corporations and organizations, and building a rich portfolio of art projects should have a major impact.
Group Leader Harada Mayumi wrapped up with the following comments.
“Lately there has been much research on the use of art as a prescription for extremely pressing social problems, showing that going to museums makes people healthier, happier, and less lonely. People often say that visiting a museum makes them feel relaxed and happy, and there is mounting medical evidence to back this up. I have personally felt joy from looking at artworks at museums, so I hope that more people use museums in this way. By continuing with the tasks immediately ahead, the Social Cooperation Group hopes to lay the groundwork for a future in which society and museums are closely connected.”
In the future more and more people will become acquainted with museums, and art museums all over Japan will become a natural part of people’s everyday lives. As programs are devised in partnership with corporations and organizations, broadening the base of museum-goers, people’s expectations and the demands on museums will surely rise. If this happens, museums will answer the call, leading to an ever richer environment for art in Japan. The members of the Social Cooperation Group share this vision and will create collaborative projects one after another that connect corporations and organizations to museums.
(Interviews, text, and group photo by Nakajima Ryohei)
