President Message:
In addition to serving as a site for research, creation, and education, the university conveys information to society and provides a base for productive relationships with local residents. Last year the Kyoto City University of Arts Art Gallery, also known as @KCUA, was launched as a satellite space in the heart of Kyoto, further enriching its social function.
@KCUA is an acronym for the name of the university, and when pronounced, it also recalls the Latin word for water, aqua. Water fosters life, thus suggesting the university’s ideals of permeating people’s lives with art, and making a rich creative contribution to society.
Besides developing activities in three university faculties (the Art Department, the Music Department, and the Research Center for Japanese Traditional Music), the newly established @KCUA, apropos of its name, is actively involved in reciprocal projects with these facilities as well as off-campus collaborations. As one might expect, these programs encompass a diverse range of events including exhibitions, performances, symposiums, lectures, research meetings, and workshops, and in the future, there are plans to create an open-cafe-like venue for daily exchanges.
As a facility founded on a practical and flexible concept in Kyoto, a city which boasts a great deal of tradition and might be seen as a massive cultural resource, @KCUA is just beginning to develop activities to transcend the existing university framework. We look forward to your continued understanding and support in the future.
- TATEHATA Akira, Director of Kyoto City University of Arts
Mission Statement:
The Founding and Objectives of @KCUA (Kyoto City University of Arts Gallery)
In 1991, a center for the arts was opened on the Katsura campus of Kyoto City University of Arts. In addition to displays of work from the school’s collection in the showroom, the center encompasses two galleries (one small, one large), a hall, and an atelier to present a variety of exhibitions related to new research and other topics. While providing an opportunity for visitors to view works of art, the center also functions as an experimental venue for students to make public the results of their daily activities. In the spring of 2010, after Kyoto Horikawa Senior High School of Music relocated to a new building, a new gallery was built on the south side of the school’s lot called the Horikawa Oike Gallery. There, along with the Kyoto City Dohda Senior High School of Arts, the Kyoto City University of Arts Gallery (@KCUA) was opened on April 2, 2010.
@KCUA, based on the initials of the university’s name, can also be pronounced “aqua,” the Latin word for “water.” Just as water provides nourishment for life, art permeates people’s daily lives, and this name suggests the university’s ideal of making a contribution to a society that is rich in creativity. As the Aqua Project was launched as an attempt to make unique art research and education accessible to regional society through the cooperation of three university facilities (the Faculty of Art, the Faculty of Music, and the Japanese Traditional Music Research Center), the objectives of the gallery are very much the same. Specifically, @KCUA was created to perform the following three functions:
1. To make results of education and research people to the general public.
2. To create a place for interaction between personnel involved in the creation of art and culture.
3. To function as a satellite for cooperative activities based on artistic resources.
1. The university, founded 130 years ago, has produced and cultivated a variety of results which have in turn been made accessible both on and off campus. Through the realization of a new venue in the center of Kyoto, it has now become possible to provide the public with more information at a more convenient location. Here, along with exhibitions, workshops, lectures, and courses based on research by current students, faculty members, and alumni which are aimed at the public, we look forward to attaining positive results through a variety of collaborative projects involving industrial, educational, and research facilities in central Kyoto.
2. The exhibitions, workshops, and courses planned at the gallery are not intended merely as public presentations of various results, but also to create a place where a wide range of people can interact through collaborative projects involving on-campus groups, alumni associations, local residents, and industrial, educational, and research facilities.
3. Aside from these collaborations between the university, residents, the City of Kyoto, and industrial facilities, the basis for the gallery is the collection and exchange of information. Thus, it is important to important collect, cultivate, and exchange information related to the people, things, money, and places that are among Kyoto’s artistic resources. Taking advantage of its position as a satellite, the gallery focuses on collecting, cultivating, and exchanging (receiving and transmitting) information.
Opening hours:
Tue - Sun 10 am - 7 pm closed on Mon
