Why this new show at the ROM throws out those 'do not touch' signs

From a young age, we’re taught that museum objects are to be seen, not felt. Yet in “Shokkan: Material Encounters in Japanese Art,” a new major exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum, that thinking is almost entirely thrown out the door. Go ahead, do touch, this show seemingly beckons to us. 

It’s even in the exhibition’s name. In Japanese, the word “shokkan” means “the sense of touch.” More specifically, it refers to the psychological impression of touch. 

Yes, there are various items on display behind glass cases. But the centrepieces of this exhibition are multiple tactile stations. You can actually feel the featherweight fabric of a Japanese kimono, the sturdy hilt of a samurai sword, the intricate crevices that make up a netsuke (a miniature sculpture). 

If this all sounds counterintuitive and goes against everything you’ve been told about museum etiquette, know that I felt the same. (I half expected a slap on the wrist each time my hand wandered anywhere near the objects at the interactive stations.) But what this illuminating exhibition achieves, especially as laid out by curator Akiko Takesue, is to offer a new way of experiencing Japanese art.

Take, for instance, the handscroll. I’d seen dozens, maybe even hundreds, of these emakimono over the years. But never had I held one in my hands. I was surprised by its delicate texture, and the synchronized, manual pas de deux required to unfurl and read one. (You’re meant to unfurl the scroll so it’s the width of your shoulders, then proceed to twist both rolls to the left, simultaneously, to follow the narrative.)

The vast majority of items in this exhibition are drawn from the museum’s permanent collection of Japanese art. The fact that most ROM visitors have likely seen some of these objects before in previous shows (wasn’t that samurai armour previously downstairs?) isn’t much of a problem because Takesue has presented them in such a unique way, offering a new entry point for us to rediscover these familiar objects.

But what is a bigger issue — and an unavoidable fault of this show — is the dearth of works in the ROM’s Japanese collection. Anyone who frequents the museum knows that its East Asian acquisitions pale in size compared to its other collections. 

“Shokkan” occasionally suffers due to this, feeling a bit like a hodgepodge of items — sake cups and kimonos are displayed alongside samurai swords and decorative scrolls — rather than a properly curated show of the best items from a broader collection.

Nonetheless, Takesue still makes the most of what she has to work with. She’s especially strong at arranging individual items, often pairing objects based on a shared function.

A light summer kimono from the Shōwa period (1929) is placed beside a dress and trousers from the ’90s; a black tea bowl with a crane from the 19th century is next to a much rougher bowl crafted more than a century later; and a glistening gold screen from the Edo period (mid-17th century) stands opposite Kōsuke Ikeda’s “Abstract/Expression/Byōbu,” a more contemporary wooden screen made during the COVID-19 pandemic and containing hundreds of painted stickers. (The latter work is the only item loaned to the ROM for this exhibit.)

These juxtapositions accentuate the textural contrasts between the works. But more importantly, they foster a conversation between the various objects, as if they were stretching and intermingling across time and space. And when accompanied by those tactile stations that allow us to feel what these objects are like, “Shokkan” offers something so often lacking at other sterile museum exhibitions: a sense of physical connection to these exquisite works of art.