We Held "Polymath Museum of Play: The Little Museum of Play"

On March 1, we held “Polymath Museum of Play: The Little Museum of Play” (Chiisana Asobi no Hakubutsukan) at the West Plaza of Cross Terrace Morioka in Odori, Morioka. “Polymath Museum” is a project that pops up a small, traveling museum under the concept “Bringing the bustle of children to the town.”

This project corresponds to “#04 Moving Museum (Project Moving Museum)” on our project list page. As already described in our February 18, 2024 post “About the Museum of Play Plan,” it is an initiative that aims to achieve two things at once: “bringing life to the town” and “creating intellectual places for children to play.”

This was the first edition¹. The theme of the first exhibition was “Let’s Play Games You Can’t Play Alone.”

Still a work in progress

On the day, the event ran for two hours, from 14

to 16, and about 20 parents and children took part, including friends and acquaintances.

Because the project is still being refined, we are prioritizing holding it regularly and continuously on a small scale, and we hold it without advance notice or announcements. As for the content, as we wrote in “About the Museum of Play Plan,” we carefully select the games and activities we offer according to our own standards. Some are original games we are developing for “The Little Museum of Play.”

We are still far from our ideal, but we will keep improving it so that it works for everyone, and we hope to make it a fixture in Morioka: a place where children and adults can enjoy themselves together.

For example, we will not collect things like the “play kitchen sets” found in the kids’ rooms of public facilities in Iwate. As far as possible, we want to collect games and make them available according to the following policy: (1) they come from what nature gives us, (2) they respect children’s intelligence, and (3) they are authentic. Nature Game activities, for example, fit this policy. Making fire, cooking outdoors and woodworking also match it.

We want to offer a wide range of things that even adults who have no interest in children’s play can enjoy together.

The Museum of Play is for everyone with a playful spirit. Dreaming of the day when the Museum of Play is played as an appealing new title for the town of Morioka…

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Footnotes

1. We were able to hold the first edition with the cooperation of Mita Norin, which operates Cross Terrace Morioka, and of OISHI Kaito, who is incredibly strong at shogi. We would like to take this opportunity to express our heartfelt thanks. ↩