Interview with Curator Okushima
We spoke with Okushima Yuichi, a curator specializing in insects, about the Kurashiki Museum of Natural History.
What is Kurashiki City’s natural history museum?
What kind of place is a natural history museum?
Okushima (honorific omitted)
It’s difficult to define a museum in a single sentence, but its primary role is collecting materials.
Next, those materials are investigated and researched.
Ultimately, the findings of that research are shared with visitors.
As many people recognize, the most straightforward way is to display them for people to see.
What distinguishes Kurashiki City’s museum is its focus on natural history specimens.
Natural history specimens include rocks, minerals, fossils, plants, insects, animals (such as taxidermy and skeletal specimens)—specimens of all kinds of natural objects.
I’ve heard that natural history museums themselves are rare.
Okushima
The law requires a “museum” to collect and preserve materials.
Also, things that are widely interesting to the general public and easy to preserve, such as history, ethnology, and art, are often housed in “local history museums” even in relatively small municipalities.
Even at the scale of prefectural museums, natural history collections are often held only as one field within a general museum covering “history, ethnology, and natural history.”
In that context, Kurashiki City’s museum is valuable: although it is not large in scale, it is a small but comprehensive natural history museum.
Nearby prefectures with prefectural natural history museums include Tottori, Tokushima, and Hyogo, but not Okayama, Kagawa, or Hiroshima.
In these cities, there are museums in Shobara City, Hiroshima Prefecture (Shobara City Hiwa Museum for Natural History) and Tsuyama City, Okayama Prefecture (Tsuyama Wonder Museum of Natural History).
Why was such a rare natural history museum established in Kurashiki City?
Okushima
I understand that the idea arose from requests about how to use the former city hall site following the relocation of the former Kurashiki City Hall (now the Kurashiki City Art Museum).
During discussions, there were calls for a “cultural zone,” and several local civic groups reportedly proposed making it a natural history museum.
The groups that made the requests were as follows, and there was already a strong foundation for gathering a considerable number of materials in each of the three major fields that make up natural history.
- Insects: The Kurashiki Insect Enthusiasts’ Club, active soon after the war
- Plants: A group centered around Okayama University’s Institute for Agricultural Biology (now the Institute of Plant Science and Resources, Okayama University)
- Fossils: Yamamoto Keiichi, also well known as a local historian (who had already collected many fossils)
The work of curators that you don’t usually get to learn about
What are the curators’ areas of expertise, and how many are there?
Okushima
My field as a curator is insects.
There is also the animal field, apart from insects.
Earth sciences covers rocks and minerals, as well as paleontology (what we commonly call fossils).
And there are four curators in the plant field.
What does a curator do?
Okushima
One role of the Kurashiki Museum of Natural History is to serve the residents.
There are 11,000 items on permanent display, which is a large number nationally, but the collection had reached 1.04 million specimens as of the end of March 2023.
In other words, a simple calculation shows that we can display only about 1% of our collection.
The remaining materials are preserved in the collection storage area, the museum’s heart, where they are investigated and researched as they await their turn.
We also receive tens of thousands of donated items each year, so we arrange them according to taxonomic classification and register and manage them in a database, making it easy to find out “what is this, and from what period?”
We also provide outreach activities such as observation sessions and lectures that interested visitors can take part in, and respond to requests for assistance from outside organizations.
Events planned to mark the museum’s 40th anniversary
The museum will mark its 40th anniversary in fiscal 2023. Are you planning any special exhibitions?
Okushima
We’re considering ways to make use of the more than 1.04 million items in the collection.
To mark the 40th anniversary, we’re planning to make the summer special exhibition especially impressive, with a “Treasures from the Collection” exhibition.
I’m looking forward to the “Treasures from the Collection” exhibition. Specifically, what are these “treasures”?
Okushima
Unlike manufactured products, each specimen is one of a kind.
Because they are natural objects, when you consider the place, date, and time of collection, as well as their DNA composition, there are virtually no identical specimens.
Among them are things that are “one of a kind in the world” for various reasons, such as rare mutations, extinct species, or specimens of new species that were the first to be collected.
Such precious specimens are, understandably, difficult to put on permanent display.
That’s to avoid risks such as damage from accidents or deterioration caused by lighting.
There seem to be relatively few staff members—around 12, including the curators. Are there people who help besides the staff?
Okushima
Volunteers and members of the Museum Friends Association help prepare specimens and identify them.
The vertebrate group can even prepare skeletal specimens without instructions from a curator.
Recently, a finless porpoise was provided through an arrangement with Shibukawa Marine Aquarium (Tamano Marine Museum), and volunteers are taking the lead in preparing its skeleton.
For nurturing the next generation of children
Could you tell us what is expected of the Kurashiki Museum of Natural History going forward?
Okushima
I believe the basic role is to first collect natural objects that can never be obtained again, and preserve them in the collection.
One way to make use of the collection as an asset is the museum’s unique ability to “display items here, in our own place—the Kurashiki Museum of Natural History.”
For the sake of nurturing the children who will lead the next generation, we want to continue cherishing our valuable collection and the facility where it can be displayed.
As a natural history museum, we hope to move forward in two main directions.
The first is “cross-cultural collaboration.”
We held an insect exhibition featuring detailed origami recreations of insects.
Rather than displaying only insects, we tried to make the exhibition enjoyable for a wide range of residents by combining them with the different culture of origami.
At our annual “Museum Festival,” we aim to hold events that everyone can enjoy, even without specialized knowledge.
The second is “creating a system that enables children with an interest in natural history to continue learning about it until they enter university.”
It’s fine to leave the development of specialists who deepen their knowledge in a particular field to universities, but support is needed to help children maintain their interest until then.
In the “Bug Bug Explorers” program I’ve been involved with for 20 years, participants who were elementary and junior high school students at the time have gone on to work for the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and environmental assessment companies.
I feel that the fact that we’re still connected is a sign of the program’s impact.
From the Writer
Through the interview with Okushima, we learned about the significance of the Kurashiki Museum of Natural History and the proactive efforts by its curators to serve visitors.
We hope that the Kurashiki Museum of Natural History, which began with residents who love nature, will continue to be used as a place that connects to the future of the next generation of children, through the work led by its four curators.
This historic natural history museum marked its 40th anniversary in fiscal 2023.
To commemorate the occasion, the “Treasures from the Collection” exhibition is also planned.
Be sure to visit.
Kurashiki Museum of Natural History details
| Name | Kurashiki Museum of Natural History |
|---|---|
| Address | 2-6-1 Chuo, Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture |
| Contact | 086-425-6037 |
| Parking | None There is no dedicated parking lot, so please use a nearby paid parking lot. ・Kurashiki City Central Parking Lot ・Kurashiki City Bikan Historical Area South Parking Lot ・Kurashiki City Achi Terrace Kurashiki Parking Lot |
| Opening hours | 9:00 a.m.–5:15 p.m. (last admission at 4:45 p.m.) |
| Closed | Mondays However, if Monday is a public holiday or a substitute holiday, the museum is closed the following day. Closed for the year-end and New Year holidays (December 28–January 1); may also close temporarily for fumigation of the collection storage area and other reasons. |
| Admission (tax included) | Adults: Individual ¥150, groups (20 or more) ¥100 University students: Individual ¥50, groups (20 or more) ¥30 High school students and younger: Free Age 65 and over: Free People with disabilities and one accompanying person: Free ※Admission fees may be set separately during special exhibitions. ※Other discounts are available. Please inquire. |
| Payment methods |
|
| Reservations | Available Schools and groups can make reservations in advance by phone (086-425-6037). Online applications and email reservations are not currently accepted. When calling, please provide the following information: ・Name of school or group ・Number of visitors and accompanying staff ・Date of visit ・Start and end times of the visit ・Name of the person in charge ・Contact phone number |
| Smoking | Entirely smoke-free |
| Restrooms | Western-style restrooms, accessible restrooms, public restrooms |
| Childcare | Nursing room, diaper-changing table, stroller rental |
| Accessibility | Accessible restrooms, elevator, wheelchair rental |
| Website | Kurashiki Museum of Natural History |
What would you like to know about Kurashiki?
Enter a search term to find articles on this site
