Image: Meguro Museum of Art, Kyoto
Meguro Museum of Art is presenting 'Toshiya Takahama: Iea Atsume' from June 27 to August 30, 2026, in an exhibition centered on the artist’s copperplate prints and long-running engagement with the themes of 'house' and 'town.' The museum describes the show as an experiential project in which visitors can help build blocks and contribute to the installation, extending Takahama’s practice into a shared and changing environment.
According to the museum, Takahama developed his interest in architectural form after studying art and working alongside copperplate printmaking. What began as a practical job in carpentry gradually informed the rectangular shapes and straight lines that structure his prints, and later became a sustained focus on the motif of the 'house.' The exhibition traces that shift through works from his early period to new pieces, bringing together printmaking and collaborative activity under the artist’s concept of 'ie atsume,' or gathering houses.
The exhibition also revisits a key moment from 2006, when Takahama and Sotaro Ide presented the vacant-house project 'Koide no Ie' at the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale. The museum says children in the area began playing with offcuts from the project and spontaneously made a 'town' from the materials, an encounter that shaped Takahama’s subsequent workshops in Japan and abroad. In his own words, included on the exhibition page, these activities form part of a practice he calls 'ie atsume,' a process of gathering houses through printmaking and social exchange.
Inside the museum, the installation includes a spread of block-built 'townscape' made with wooden pieces assembled by children from Shimomeguro Elementary School in Meguro as part of an outreach program conducted before the exhibition opened. The school project, held between April and June 2026, involved sixth-grade classes in a five-session series led by Takahama. The resulting children’s prints on the themes of 'house' and 'town' are also on view, placing the museum exhibition in direct dialogue with an educational collaboration next door.
Among the works highlighted by the museum is the artist’s book work 'Black Diary,' which visitors may handle and page through in the gallery. The museum notes that if the work becomes damaged through visitor use, Takahama will repair it in a dedicated workshop space when he is present. The exhibition also includes prints such as 'House in Shanghai-1' (2008), 'Community on the move / Railway 5' (2011), and 'From the Gaze That Trembles / b' (1992), indicating the range of the artist’s printmaking across several decades.
A participatory component called the 'Iea Atsume Project' runs throughout the exhibition during specified hours from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., excluding listed blackout dates and regular closure days. Visitors can select pieces from a pile of wooden offcuts, color them, connect them into houses, and add them to the growing town inside the show. The museum says the town will be dismantled after the exhibition and reused at a future venue, where it will become a new town again.
The exhibition schedule also includes an artist talk on July 5, an online-linked talk with the 'Oshika Project' on August 8, and a conversation-style museum café event on August 22. 'Toshiya Takahama: Iea Atsume' is on view at Meguro Museum of Art from June 27 through August 30, 2026.
