2024 marks the 50th anniversary of Chihiro Iwasaki’s passing. Over this past half century, the world has changed
dramatically, as has the surroundings in which children now find themselves. Against this new backdrop, what do Chihiro’s works tell us today?​
Throughout 2024, the Chihiro Art Museum (Tokyo and Azumino) will hold a new exhibition aimed at interpreting Chihiro’s artwork through the three themes of “play,” “nature,” and “peace,” incorporating a modern scientific perspective that both children and adults will want not only to look at but also participate in.

» Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Chihiro Iwasaki’s Passing: To all children
» Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Chihiro Iwasaki’s Passing: To all children

» Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Chihiro Iwasaki’s Passing: To all children » Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Chihiro Iwasaki’s Passing: To all children

    Chihiro Art Museum Tokyo

  • Life, Here and There
    March 1 (Fri.) to June 16 (Sun.)
  • A.So.Bo (Let’s Play)
    June 22 (Sat.) to October 6 (Sun.)
  • We Are All Friends
    October 12 (Sat.) to January 31 (Fri.), 2025

    Chihiro Art Museum Azumino

  • A.So.Bo (Let’s Play)
    March 1 (Fri.) to June 2 (Sun.)
  • We Are All Friends
    June 8 (Sat.) to September 1 (Sun.)
  • Life, Here and There
    September 7 (Sat.) to December 1 (Sun.)

Chihiro Iwasaki

1918–1974

Chihiro Iwasaki was born in Takefu (currently Echizen-shi), Fukui Prefecture, and raised in Tokyo. She studied calligraphy at the Fujiwara Kozei School and art under Saburosuke Okada, Tai Nakatani, and Toshi Maruki. After World War II, she was active as an artist for children’s books, picture-story panels, textbooks, picture magazines, and picture books. She created illustrations depicting children and flowers throughout her life. In 1974, Chihiro died at the age of 55. Approximately 9,600 of her works currently exist.

» Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Chihiro Iwasaki’s Passing: To all children

Exhibition Directors:

Motoshi Chikamori + Ai Ohara (plaplax)

Exhibition Directors: Motoshi Chikamori + Ai Ohara (plaplax)
With a focus on the creation of interactive art, the activities of these artists span a wide range of fields that include exhibition composition, spatial presentation, and video content planning and production. Employing a variety of methods and media, they work to create experiences that make possible creative learning and discovery. In 2018, the two participated in the exhibition series Life—The 100th Anniversary of Chihiro Iwasaki’s Birth: Play plaplax, which was held at Chihiro Art Museum.
https://plaplax.com/

A Message from plaplax:
“Innocent children, beautiful nature, a wish for peace.”
These were themes that Chihiro depicted in her artwork throughout her life.

In the year that marks 50 years since her death, when we tried to address these themes anew, we decided to look at them through the eyes of science. But this doesn’t mean that we drew on difficult knowledge and information. Start by taking a close look at what you see in front of you. Accept it as it is. We don’t consider the eye of science to be something just for special people to consider difficult things, but rather a means that anyone can use to transform a familiar landscape into a rich world full of new discoveries. Children, by their nature, likely view the world in this way.
Visitors looking at the works at the venue, touching them, and moving their bodies. Children and adults alike excitedly working their way forward while exclaiming, “Wow! What’s this?” This is the kind of exhibition we wanted to realize.

Graphic Design

Tomohiro Okazaki

Tomohiro Okazaki established his own design studio, SWIMMING, in September 2011. Working from a foundation based in graphic design, he flexibly connects such visual communication media as printed materials, video, and exhibitions, and engages in design activities spanning both the cultural and economic realms, regardless of the scale of the work. Okazaki is strongly attracted to the potential of design work as an opportunity to confront unknown worlds and phenomena, to connect with people and society, and to discover and engage with the way the world is perceived and structured.
https://www.swimmingdesign.com/profile/

Chihiro’s illustrations are with us in our lives in the form of books or printed matter. I’m interested in the boundary where our daily lives and her world blend together.
I feel the word “richness” applies to the feeling that is borne when the time we live in comes in contact with Chihiro’s world.
What I’m trying to achieve in the graphic design of posters and fliers [for the Chihiro Museum’s 2024 exhibitions] is a graphic image as an object or space where Chihiro’s world and our world overlap. Although illustrations exist as two-dimensional objects, they actually exist together with physical things and space. I will attempt to design a state in which illustrations overlap with the world we live in. And I imagine that it would be possible to design a means of melding this perspective into the graphics of the exhibit rooms as well.

Exhibition overview

plaplax, Play Equipment for Viewing Picture Books, 2018 Photo by Nahoko Morimoto
Chihiro Iwasaki, Skipping Children, 1969

The children in Chihiro Iwasaki’s illustrations are always engaged in play. Some children make friends with stuffed animals, others play in puddles on a rainy day, and some even turn cleaning into a form of play. Children explore the world and acquire knowledge through play. In this exhibit, we approach Chihiro’s works depicting children at play from the perspective of developmental psychology and, at the same time, turn viewing artwork in the museum into play. Equipment will be offered for looking at some of the works and visitors will also encounter works that they can physically enter. This is an exhibition that will enable you to think about the present and future of children while freely enjoying Chihiro’s world.

March 1 (Fri.) to June 2 (Sun.), Azumino[MORE]
June 22 (Sat.) to October 6 (Sun.), Tokyo[MORE]
Exhibition Cooperation
Yusuke Moriguchi
Kyoto University
Associate Professor, Developmental psychology, Cognitive science
Professor Moriguchi specializes in developmental psychology and developmental cognitive neuroscience. He studies the cognitive, social, and brain development of children. In addition, he disseminates his findings about child development through lectures to parents and others who work with children.

Work plays a central role in the lives of most adults, but for children, play is the center of their lives. Viewed from a psychological perspective, it is believed that by enjoying play, children can fill their days with energy and prepare themselves for adulthood. Also, children can enjoy playing with even the most boring things. Chihiro Iwasaki’s illustrations clearly capture the essence of children at play. And, above all, what makes her works so wonderful is that she depicts playing from a child’s perspective. In this exhibit, we invite you to view her work while playing.

plaplax, Water Pocket, 2014
Chihiro Iwasaki, Children with Wheat and Scallions, mid 1960s

When Chihiro Iwasaki was living and creating illustrations in Shimoshakujii, Tokyo, more than five decades ago, Japan was in the midst of rapid economic growth. In the name of development, trees were cut down, rivers were buried, and the number of flowers and plants that were usually seen decreased. Chihiro said, “In my picture books, I try to depict the various kinds of kindness and beauty that have disappeared from the Japan of today.” In saying this, she may also have been expressing the alarm she felt at the loss of nature around her. Fifty years have passed since then, and many living things continue to disappear daily from this earth. We hope that this exhibition will provide visitors with the opportunity to enjoy and consider how we can coexist with different forms of life aside from humans.

March 1 (Fri.) to June 16 (Sun.), Tokyo[MORE]
September 7 (Sat.) to December 1 (Sun.), Azumino[MORE]
Exhibition Cooperation
Izumi Washitani
Professor Emeritus, the University of Tokyo
Ecology & Conservation Ecology
Professor Washitani, a Doctor of Science, is the recipient of such awards as the MIDORI Academic Prize and the Achievement Award of the Ecological Society of Japan. She has taught and conducted research in ecology and conservation ecology at the University of Tsukuba, the University of Tokyo, and Chuo University. Her major published books for public include Nippon Shizen Saisei Kiko (Japan Nature Restoration Travelogue), Satoyama—Seibutsu Tayosei to Seitai Moyo (Satoyama—Biodiversity and Ecosystem Patterns), and Seibutsu Tayosei Nyumon (Introduction to Biodiversity) (all from Iwanami Shoten).

The global goal of the Convention of Biological Diversity is “to live in harmony with nature.” Today, we have lost most of the biodiversity of grasslands maintained by periodical burning from the distant past where humans and nature had lived in harmony. I hope that visitors will enjoy viewing these precious illustrations depicting children being familiar with wildflowers, including this day’s endangered species, and bracken, and experience a small “Garden of Mutualism” with real such plants. Also, the color purple that is so appealing in Chihiro’s works is the natural color of ripe fruits and flowers, which plants have evolved to develop mutualistic relationships with animals helping plant reproduction. I hope this exhibition will prove enjoyable to both the senses and the intellect through the various shades of purple on display, from red to blue, as the color of mutualism

plaplax, Children in Pictures, 2018 (Reference Art Work)
Chihiro Iwasaki, The Boy Turning Away, The Girl Turning Away, from Tonari ni Kita Ko (Will You Be My Friend?), Shiko-sha, 1970.

“Telling myself, ‘We’re all friends,’ I look for the nostalgic, tender home of the human soul, which can be found in picture books.” These words, which Chihiro Iwasaki wrote, reflect how she approached the process of making picture books. Her picture books may contain the secret to creating peace. By seeking peace through Chihiro’s illustrations and words, we may be able to discover many answers. In this exhibition, which incorporates the concept of inclusive design, we use Chihiro’s illustrations as a starting point as we strive to find hints for how all people, from children to adults, can respect one another and build peace together.

June 8 (Sat.) to September 1 (Sun.), Azumino[MORE]
October 12 (Sat.) to January 31 (Fri.), 2025, Tokyo[MORE]
Exhibition Cooperation
Takayuki Shiose
Kyoto University
Associate Professor, System engineering, Inclusive design
Professor Shiose continues to explore the design of inquiries that attract diverse people to learn deeply, including supervising the renewal of one of the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation’s permanent exhibitions, Nanairo Quest—The Stories of the Future of Living with Robots, and the renewal of the Tokushima Prefectural Museum from the perspective of inclusive design.

If you were to think about the “opposite words of peace,” what words would come to mind? If you weren’t to use words such as “war” or “conflict,” what words would you use to describe the concept? For Chihiro Iwasaki, not many of her works directly dealt with war, a theme that must have been heartbreaking for her, but rather, she simply continued to depict children.
“Children, with their innocent eyes and lips and hearts, are all the same around the world.” This viewpoint, unique to Chihiro, who created many children’s picture books, is the basis for thinking about peace in this exhibition. When Chihiro said, “At those times in your life when you feel sad or hopeless, please recall the gentle world of picture books,” I believe that her voice will give us the strength to face peace.

» Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Chihiro Iwasaki’s Passing: To all children

Access

Chihiro Art Museum Tokyo

Admission

Adults: JPY 1200
Up to 18 years old and high school students: Free
Click here for details

Access

4-7-2, Shimo-Shakujii, Nerima-ku, Tokyo 177-0042, Japan

→ Google Map

tel. +81-3-3995-0612

fax +81-3-3995-0680

Chihiro Art Museum Azumino

Admission

Adults: JPY 1200
Up to 18 years old and high school students: Free

Click here for details

Access

3358-24, Nishihara, Matsukawa-mura Kita-Azumi-gun, Nagano, 399-8501, Japan
→ Google Map

tel. +81-261-62-0772
fax +81-261-62-0774



FOLLOW US

CONTACT US