Since the Kyoto Prefectural School of Painting – the present Kyoto City University of Arts – was founded in 1880 (Meiji 13), Kyoto City University of Arts has played a central role as an international hub for Japanese arts. The university and its previous incarnations have inherited, upheld, and renewed traditional arts over the past 138 years, and count among their alumni many world famous artists. Kyoto City University of Arts Art Gallery @KCUA invited artist Yuichiro Tamura as a collaborator for the exhibition, which was held as part of Kyoto City’s Meiji 150-nen: Kyoto no kiseki Project, commemorating the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Meiji period (1868–1912). In Tamura’s works, he samples not only images that he has taken himself but also preexisting footage, coaxing unique relationships out of them in order to create new landscapes. In recent years, he has focused on the approach to various sites and places, and produces his works based on elaborate research – or, as he prefers to call the process, “search” – of reading into their history and context. For this exhibition, he chose to focus on the painter Chokunyu Tanomura, one of the founders of the Kyoto Prefectural School of Painting, who is also known for his contributions to the advancement of the sencha tea ceremony. By tracing Chokunyu’s footsteps to spin a new tale, Tamura and @KCUA presented a singular “staging” of the collection of the Kyoto City University of Arts Art Museum.