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Paper short abstract

The presentation examines five museums founded by Japanese NRMs, conceptualizing the museum as a medium of religion. It shows how NRMs use the art museum format to communicate religious doctrines, practices, and worldviews through not only exhibits, but also architecture, and geography.

Paper long abstract

For the past decades, Japanese New Religious Movements (NRM) have become active participants in civil society. Incorporating secular institutional forms, they not only show interests in schools and universities, but also employ the educational potential of museums.

Within religious studies research, museums have long been of interest. Approaches of material religion explore the (re)contextualization of religious objects and their employment as historical, ethnographic, or aesthetic specimens in order to disseminate knowledge about religion.

My research investigates five museums founded and curated by NRM. Drawing on the close reading and analysis of museum ephemera, participant observations, and museum visits, as well as ethnographic encounters and formal interviews with staff, curators, and practitioners on site, I show that these organizations employ the seemingly impartial and secular format of the art museum to reflect on religious doctrines, practices, and worldviews. Rather than relying on the presentation of religiously significant objects, meaning is not only embedded in the exhibits, but also in the museum format itself.

As my findings show, the curating organisations envision their museums as singular experiences to be presented to prospective visitors. Among the deliberate choices made in founding a museum, geography and architecture are as important as the collection and curation of objects. Spatial interactions beyond the boundaries of the museum building include the proximity to places of religious significance, the interaction of architecture and nature in accordance with religious doctrine, and the placement of museum buildings within whole neighbourhoods dominated by the respective NRM.

This approach not only sheds light on the motivations and strategies of religious organisations employing the institutional format of the museum, but also invites us to consider how architecture and geography contribute to the lasting appeal of museums in the 21st century.