A guided tour of Keio Museum Commons

In this final step of the week, you will visit the Keio University Museum Commons, the stage for next week.

The Keio University Museum Commons (KeMCo) was launched in 2020 as a research institution and museum of Keio University. A significant force behind the establishment of KeMCo was the donation from the Century Cultural Foundation, founded by Mr. Yoshio Akao, the founder of Obunsha. This donation consists of over 2,300 cultural properties related to written culture, such as calligraphy, books, and craft artworks, as well as a fund created for their utilization. In September 2020, prior to the museum’s official opening, a new facility equipped with storage, an exhibition room, a workshop room, and a creation studio was constructed on the east side of Keio University’s Mita Campus in Minato Ward, Tokyo.

^{Take a closer look}

Although the exhibition space is less than 150 square meters, the facility serves as a hub for the following activities:

1. Planning and hosting agile exhibitions and related programs that reflect the present state of research and education.
2. Serving as a hub for a decentralized museum, connecting and supporting activities related to cultural properties within Keio University, and collaborating with university museums both domestically and abroad.
3. Using the creation studio ‘KeMCo StudI/O’ as a base to prototype collaborations between cultural properties and digital technology.
4. Establishing and managing an information platform that offers a comprehensive view of Keio University’s cultural collections and related exhibitions. Furthermore, this platform is connected to domestic and international databases, positioning Keio University’s cultural property-related information within a global open network.
5. Conducting research necessary for these initiatives and supporting stakeholders who manage cultural properties.

Next week, using specific activities of KeMCo as examples, we will attempt to reframe activities surrounding collections using the akichi concept.