Japanese domestic living exhibition at the Geffrye Museum, London until Aug 29th

From the press release:

   In the West, the Japanese house has reached iconic status in its architecture, decoration and style. However, is this neat, carefully constructed version of Japanese life in fact a myth? This special exhibition aims to question the widespread stereotype of the minimal Japanese house, characterised by large empty spaces devoid of people and things. It goes behind the doors of contemporary urban homes to find out how private domestic lives are lived in Japan today, examining a variety of aspects of the home – from decoration, display, furniture and the tatami mat, to eating, sleeping, ‘gifting’, cleaning, hygiene, and worship.

   The exhibition recreates the layout of a standard urban apartment. Visitors will travel through an entrance hall, a ‘western style’ room, tatami room, bathroom, and, finally, to the LDK – ‘living-dining-kitchen’ – area, the largest communal space inside the home. Each of these rooms will be filled with a selection of the everyday possessions with which inhabitants might surround themselves. We hope that through an active engagement with these day-to-day spaces and objects, visitors may not only experience a degree of what it feels like to be at home in contemporary Japan, but also to encounter another culture on an empathetic level instead of gazing at and imagining its exotic nature from a distance.

    Full detail of the exhibition as well as a series of lectures on May 14th can be found here.