Feature Exhibition: Nighttime and items

-Half of our life is night-

Have you ever walked in the complete darkness, where you can’t see anything? When you do so, you’ll feel like your body will be dissolved into the darkness. It’ll give you a huge sense of anxiety.

 About 1000 years ago, Seisho Nagon, a Japanese writer, wrote in her book, “Makurano soushi(The Pillow Book)” as follows, “In Summer, night time is the best, especially when the moon is bright. Even in the complete darkness, you’ll see many fire flies floating around here and there. It is also nice to see one or two of them flying about, releasing faint lights. If it rains, it’s good too.” Her appreciation of the moonlight or lights released from fire flies shows us the importance of the light at night.

Development of lights enabled us to use our night time more effectively. We needed light when we do an all-nighter. Ten years after the electric light began to be sold to the public, our average sleeping hours was said to have shortened by 2 hours. Introduction of electric lights changed our way of spending nights.

This exhibition depicts the way of spending nighttime from past to present by showing some items used at night.

Posted by Takamura