The DNP Kyoto Uzumasa Cultural Heritage Gallery will be closed from December 29 to January 3, 2025.
We open from Saturday, January 4 in the new year. We look forward to your visit.
A group of student will be visiting the site on Friday, 11 October, from 11am to 3pm.
We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause to other visitors and ask for your understanding.
The DNP Kyoto Uzumasa Cultural Heritage Gallery, opened in 2014 within Dai Nippon Printing (DNP)'s Uzumasa production site in Kyoto as an art center showcasing DNP's digital archive solutions that encapsulate "Tomorrow's Basic" for preservation and transmission of cultural heritage, has relocated to COCON KARASUMA in 2022.
Cultural heritage is defined as tangible record of human activity at a given time and place. Exploring this repository of human wisdom and ingenuity can provide us with valuable clues for pioneering the world of the future. In order to pass this heritage to posterity, we believe it is essential to convert it into universally accessible data and to present it in a readily understandable form.
Since its founding, DNP has nurtured a wide range of information media technologies and solutions – from printing to digital and networked systems combining text and image. They have been applied to and developed in three projects launched by DNP for archiving cultural heritage: the Kyoto Cultural Heritage Archive, DNP Museum Lab, and the DNP Foundation for Cultural Promotion Archive Project.
We are happy to present several elements of "Tomorrow's Basic" proposed by DNP in connection with cultural heritage, including Denshoubi high-definition videos and digital reproductions of some of Kyoto's most renowned cultural treasures, as well as interactive art-viewing systems developed as part of joint projects between DNP and various museums in Japan and around the world.
Launched jointly by DNP, the TOMORROW'S KYOTO Cultural Heritage Platform, and Mainichi Broadcasting System (MBS) in 2014, the project seeks to promote the preservation of Kyoto's rich cultural heritage and its transmission to future generations in good condition. Some of the precious and tangible or intangible cultural assets in Kyoto or its surroundings, starting with the temples and palaces inscribed in the World Cultural Heritage List as Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto, have been recorded on high-definition videos. By planning and operating cultural experience programs using archived data, the project also seeks to assist the owners of those assets in passing down the long-fostered tradition to future generations.
DNP Museum Lab is a cultural initiative of DNP which aims at exploring and giving shape to ideas for enjoying art and culture. Since its inception, more than one hundred viewing systems utilizing multimedia have been developed in collaboration with museums and cultural institutions in Japan and abroad, including the Musée du Louvre and the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), to assist visitors in developing their interest in and understanding of artworks from various aspects. It seeks to update the traditional functions of museums (collection, conservation, research, exhibition, and education) in line with the times and to offer an enriched experience of art and culture for the people.
The DNP Foundation for Cultural Promotion collects and preserves the works and related materials of leading graphic designers of postwar Japan, beginning with figures such as Tanaka Ikko. With a goal of building a systematic archive of graphic art, the project began by calling on graphic designers to donate some of their major works. Besides opening the online database of its collection to the public, the foundation serves as a research center on graphic design and graphic art by providing services such as loaning artworks to museums and accepting researchers for their research activities.
Combining high-definition digital technologies from image capture and processing to printing with materials technologies including specially developed Japanese paper and gold-leaf grounds, DNP has achieved precise reproductions of cultural heritage artworks whose archival durability ensures their transmission to future generations. The solution addresses the dilemma faced by cultural heritage practitioners, in reconciling preservation considerations and disclosure to the public.
Besides creating high-definition videos of cultural heritage such as shrines and temples, traditional art performances, and art of everyday life developed by old merchant families in Kyoto, DNP has immortalized a number of fine art pieces including sliding screen paintings and wall scrolls in ultra-high-definition images. The shooting know-how, color management techniques and other skills acquired through those activities are now leveraged to create and archive 3D data of objects and historical spaces.
These information systems are designed to meet the needs of viewers of diverse languages, knowledge levels, and cultural backgrounds through intuitive interfaces. They enable specialized and complex information difficult to convey in wall panels or pamphlets to be presented in an easily understandable manner, arousing users' interest and deepening their understanding through hands-on experience.
| Opened | : | October 9, 2014 |
|---|---|---|
| Access | : | 3F COCON KARASUMA 620 Suiginya-cho, Karasuma-dori Shijo-sagaru, Shimogyo-ku, Kyoto City |
| Phone | : | ＋81 (0）75-662-7090 |
| Planning and management | : | Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. |
| Opening hours | : | 11:00 -19:00 from Monday to Friday, 11:00 -18:00 on Saturday, Sunday, and public holidays. Closed on Mondays (or Tuesdays if Monday is a holiday), on days following a public holiday (except Saturdays and Sundays), and during display changes at Kyoto ddd Gallery. |