Update:February 27, 2025

Sapporo Parallel Museum

This collaboration between businesses in the Sapporo Ekimae Street area and the City of Sapporo was part of a project to create a bustling new urban centre and to promote Sapporo (UNESCO Creative City since Nov 2013) to the world as a hub of media arts.

Our everyday life has changed dramatically since the international outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020. With the shift to online culture, information from all over the world has become instantly available and the distance between us has vanished, creating a rich environment where arts and cultural events are now accessible worldwide. These have taken the place of in-person events, fostering new relationships and creating invisible intimacies whilst maintaining distance. At the same time, amidst this flourishing cultural landscape, we’ve found ourselves mourning the loss of location-specific textures of culture, geography, and celebration.

Faced with the ongoing pandemic, the Sapporo Parallel Museum aims to reaffirm the value of art by looking at the uncertain present from multiple perspectives. Accessible from anywhere in the world, it shows work not only onsite at physical locations around central Sapporo Ekimae Street, but also online, where the pieces are specially dedicated to the virtual space.

Sapporo Ekimae Street stretches both overground and underground. When it snows, the landscape around us often changes overnight, making us feel as if we’re witnessing the birth of an entirely new world. The Parallel Museum has created parallel worlds that link to the city’s characteristics, experiences that straddle the line between virtual and real, and opportunities to discover new possibilities for the city.

Past Editions

2025 Edition

Exhibition period: 1^st Feb (Sat) - 9^th (Sun) Feb 2025, 11:00 - 19:00

Physical venues: Daimaru Sapporo (1F & 6F), D-LIFEPLACE Sapporo (B1F), Akarenga Terrace (1F), sitatte sapporo (B1F - 2F Step Garden), Stellar Place Sapporo (1F), NOASIS 3.4 Nissay Sapporo Building (B1F), Sapporo Ekimae-dori Underground Walkway Chi-Ka-Ho

Online venue: https://www.parallelmuseum.com/2025/en/ (external site)

Exhibiting Artists: Shunsuke Imai, Kota Shiga, Rie Shinno, Yuya Suzuki, vug

In collaboration with: UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) Media Arts Cities Collaborative Project, Yurakucho Art Urbanism (YAU), NEVER MIND THE BOOKS, Sapporo International Art Festival (SIAF), Town Parenting Research Institute gurumi

Program of Events:

• Parallel Museum Shop produced by NEVER MIND THE BOOKS: Limited-time-only booth on the weekends where visitors could purchase zines, pamphlets, handouts, manga, and artist books directly from creators.
• "The Prospects of Art and Urban Development -- Artist Talk and Planning & Management Talk" Talk Event: With a focus on "urban development × art," this event explored the meaning of exhibiting artworks and the activities of artists in the city center, the joys and challenges of managing such projects, and the future challenges and prospects.
• Parent-Child Separate Art Viewing Tour: Many parents may have experienced going to an art museum with their child and being unable to fully enjoy the artwork because they must match their child's pace. To address this, Parallel Museum hosted a tour for parents to leisurely enjoy art while their child had their own separate experience.
• Stamp Rally: Visitors were able to collect 11 stamps from each of the participating locations. Once all were collected, visitors were able to redeem them for a postcard set featuring pieces by each artist. Additionally, the first 200 participants received an original tote bag, shoulder bag, or microfiber cloth.
• vug Live Painting: Artists vug produced three pieces live over the course of three days.

Host organization: Sapporo Ekimae Street Area Activation Committee

Entrance fee: free

nirametuko, LOVE, and soto samui / vug

2024 Edition

Booklet(PDF:3,261KB)

Exhibition period: 3^rd Feb (Sat) - 11^th (Sun) Feb 2024, 11:00 - 19:00

Physical venues: Daimaru Sapporo (1F & 5F), D-LIFEPLACE Sapporo B1F, Akarenga Terrace (1F), sitatte sapporo (B1F Step Garden), Hokkaido Building (tentative name) Reconstruction Project (temporary enclosure), Sapporo Ekimae-dori Underground Walkway Chi-Ka-Ho

Online venue: https://www.parallelmuseum.com/ (external site)

Exhibiting Artists: Amane Ishii, Seira Uchida, Soma Sato, Takumi Hirayama, Yuichi Yokoyama, Suguru Yamamoto & Arata Mino

In collaboration with: UNESCO Creative Cities Network 10-year Membership Aniversary Collaborative Project "Media Arts Cities of the Future, Yurakucho Art Urbanism (YAU), Sapporo International Art Festival 2024

Program of Events:

• Parallel Museum Shop produced by NEVER MIND THE BOOKS: Limited-time-only booth on the weekends where visitors could purchase zines, pamphlets, handouts, manga, and artist books directly from creators.
• "The Prospects of Art and Urban Development -- Artist Talk and Planning & Management Talk" Talk Event: With a focus on "urban development × art," this event explored the meaning of exhibiting artworks and the activities of artists in the city center, the joys and challenges of managing such projects, and the future challenges and prospects.
• "Looking Back on the Sapporo Contemporary Art Scene fro 1990 to 2020 -- Creative City Edition" Talk Event: This event discussed the unique art scene in Sapporo with a particular focus on the "Creative City" and "Sapporo International Art Festival" aspects.
• Stamp Rally: Visitors were able to collect nine stamps from each of the participating locations. Once all were collected, visitors were able to redeem them for a postcard set featuring each artist. Additionally, the first 200 participants received an original tote bag, an original acrylic stand, or a Sapporo International Art Festival 2024 passport.

Host organization: Sapporo Ekimae Street Area Activation Committee

Entrance fee: free

Monster Chronicles: Hakaio / Takumi Hirayama

2023 Edition

Booklet(PDF:2,751KB)

Exhibition period: 4^th Feb (Sat) - 12^th Feb (Sun) 2023, 11:30 - 19:30

Physical venues: Akarenga Terrace (5F Terrace Keikaku), Daimaru Sapporo (1F & 6F), Sapporo Ekimae-dori Underground Walkway Chi-Ka-Ho (“Communication square” / Kita 1 Higashi), sitatte sapporo (B1F Step Garden), and Hulic Sapporo (temporary enclosure)

Online venue: https://www.parallelmuseum.com/2023/about/ (external site)

Exhibiting artists: Tetsuro Ohashi, Yuka Numata, Asako Fujikura, Takuya Yamashita, Yuki Yamamoto & Tatsuki Hayama

In collaboration with: City to City 2021: Play! Project (Artists: OKA Miyuki, Yilin Wang, Mauricio Diaz)

Program of events:

• Parallel Museum Shop produced by NEVER MIND THE BOOKS: limited-time-only booth on the weekends where visitors could purchase zines, pamphlets, handouts, manga, and artist books directly from creators.
• Artwork tour "Seeing art with Mr. Shiratori (who cannot see)": tour for participants to view artwork accompanied by Mr. SHIRATORI Kenji, who is blind. Participants took turns guiding Shiratori, who was not searching for any “correct answers,” but asking participants to face the work, look at it carefully, and use every word possible to describe it.
• Stamp rally: visitors could collect a stamp for each piece of art via their smartphones. Each stamp earned one original postcard, and the first 100 visitors to collect all six stamps received an original tote bag. Approx. 500 people participated in total.

Host organization: Sapporo Ekimae Street Area Activation Committee

Entrance fee: free

Imaginary farm / Yuka Numata (photo: Seiji Yamagishi)

2021 Edition: "Opening the Curtain"

Booklet(PDF:1,787KB)

Exhbition period: 3^rd Dec (Fri) - 12^th Dec (Sun) 2021, 11:30 - 19:30

Physical Venues: Hulic Sapporo (temporary enclosure), miredo (2F), Sapporo Dai-ichi Building (4F); Hokkaido Building (1F – closed on 5^th & 12^th Dec); Akarenga Terrace (1F); Nissay Sapporo Building (1F; B1F)

Online Venue: https://www.parallelmuseum.com/2021 (external site)

Exhibiting artists: AKI INOMOTA, Lee Nam Lee, Eiji Ohashi, Shunsuke Kano, Hiroshi Takeda, Yusuke Takeda,Takuro Tamayama, Hyunjung Park

In collaboration with: City to City 2020: Human Responsibility Project (Artists: OGURO Junichi, Beáta Kolbašovská)

Host Organization: Sapporo Ekimae Street Area Activation Committee

Entrance fee: free