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Opened in 1992 as the first museum specialising in photography in western Japan, the Nara City Museum of Photography has been preserving and researching photographic works by photographer Taikichi Irie, and in recent years has attracted attention for its NFT and Metaverse-related projects aimed at a younger audience.
The Taikichi Irie Memorial Nara City Museum of Photography, located in Takahata-cho, Nara City, Nara Prefecture, opened in 1992 as the first public museum specialising in photography in western Japan. The museum displays and preserves the works of Taikichi Irie, a photographer who photographed the landscapes and cultural assets of Nara's Yamatoji region, as well as carrying out research activities.
Taikichi Irie was a photographer born in Nara City in 1905. He is known for his work as a photographer of Bunraku puppets, winning the first prize at the World Mobile Photography Exhibition for his ‘Bunraku in Spring’, a photograph of Bunraku puppets.
This Nara City Museum of Photography has been actively organising projects related to the NFT and Metaverse in recent years, as well as regular photographic exhibitions.
In 2022, the NFT museum ‘MANA Nara City Museum of Photography’ will open anew, where visitors can view works in the Metaverse. This is the first attempt of its kind for a photography museum in Japan and a relatively rare and challenging project for a public museum.
From November 2022 to January 2023, the Metaverse NFT Museum of Photography will host an exhibition of Taikichi Irie's photographs entitled ‘The Ancient City of Nara: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter’. -Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter’ on the Metaverse NFT Museum of Art. The exhibition featured more than 20 works carefully selected from among the vast number of Irie's works.
Prior to this exhibition, the museum organised a workshop-style exhibition with the photography club of Nara Prefecture's Chiben Gakuen High School on the Metaverse NFT Art Museum as a related project. In this exhibition, the high school students completed an exhibition on a virtual space with advice from staff on the theme of high school baseball.
The ‘Ancient Capital Nara - Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter’ and related projects were held on Decentraland, a blockchain project in the virtual space Metaverse.
The museum on Decent raland was created using 3D modelling, so it can be easily rebuilt. In the future, the company is considering collaborating with students interested in architecture and programming.
Until now, the museum has only been accessible via PC, but in March 2023, a new initiative will be launched to allow access to the Metaverse NFT Museum from smartphones. Users can now easily access the exhibition space in the virtual space from the museum's website.
In addition to being able to move freely around the museum and view artworks, visitors can also watch video commentaries by museum staff on artworks that interest them.
These attempts were initiated in the hope of bringing the younger generation of digital natives into contact with photography and art as much as possible. It is hoped that the Metaverse will first familiarise them with the artworks, and that in time the younger generation will visit the actual artists.
▶︎ The building of the Taikichi Irie Memorial Nara City Museum of Photography was designed by Kisho Kurokawa. Access is by bus from JR Nara Station and Kintetsu Nara Station.
▶︎The Metaverse Museum of Art in its prototype state, when the name had not yet been decided. The museum is designed to look like a real museum.
The Yamakoshi region, which faces harsh conditions such as heavy snowfall, earthquakes and an ageing population, partnered with Nagaoka City in Niigata Prefecture to issue NFTs for electronic residents with a Nishiki-koi motif, a traditional culture, as the world's first project officially recognised by a local authority.
The Yamakoshi area (formerly Yamakoshi Village) in Nagaoka City, Niigata Prefecture, is a heavy snowfall area in the Chuetsu Region, where, in addition to the rugged terrain unique to mountainous areas, snow accumulates to 4 m in winter.
In 1956, Yamakoshi Village was formed through the merger of four villages - Tanemihara, Ota, Takezawa and Higashi-Takezawa - and was devastated by the Niigata Chuetsu Earthquake in 2004, when the entire village had to be evacuated for a time.
The area was merged into Nagaoka City after the earthquake, and is now known as the Yamakoshi area of Nagaoka City. 17 years ago, when the earthquake struck, there were 2,200 residents in the area, but today there are approximately 800, and the population is ageing, making the area itself a ‘marginal settlement’ in danger of extinction.
On the other hand, Yamakoshi is also known as a place that has inherited many historical and cultural assets. The most representative example is the landscape of ‘terraced rice paddies’ stretching across the hills. In addition, there is a bullfighting event called ‘bull horns’, which has a history of 1,000 years and is listed as an important intangible folk cultural asset by the national government.
One of Yamakoshi's cultural assets is Nishikigoi. Many people may not know this, but Yamakoshi is the ‘birthplace of Nishikigoi’. Yamakoshi has long been a region of heavy snowfall, and in winter it was often difficult to get out of the region as traffic was closed.
This is when they started raising Nishikigoi as a source of winter protein. When they were raising carp in ‘terraced ponds’, not terraced rice paddies, one day a mutation produced a carp with a red pattern. People called it ‘Shikigoi’ (coloured carp) and raised it with great care, and as they continued breeding, Nishikigoi, known as ‘swimming jewels’, were born.
Yamakoshi, which inherited the history of Nishikigoi but was facing problems as a marginalised community, launched a new project in 2021: Coloured Carp Nishikigoi NFT. This is NFT art with Nishikigoi as its symbol and also serves as an ‘electronic resident card’ for the Yamakoshi area.
The proceeds from the sale of the NFT will be used to fund projects and solutions for the Yamakoshi area.
The NFT project has been launched in a way that aims to create a sustainable Yamakoshi with a global perspective, rather than being trapped in a settled population and competing for population as Japan's population continues to decline as a whole.
Ideas and business plans for the survival of the Yamakoshi area are discussed from time to time in the Discord community exclusively for digital residents, and in the future there are plans to build residences exclusively for people with electronic resident certificates. At present, the Virtual Yamakoshi Village Project is also underway, which allows people to interact with digital residents in the Yamakoshi area built in the metaverse space.
▶︎ Purchased NFTs will become ‘electronic resident cards’, enabling participation in local revitalisation projects and digital village election voting.
▶︎ ‘Coloured Carp Nishikigoi NFT’ can be purchased via the website. It is a strategy that is unique to marginalised communities and incorporates a global perspective.
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