「世界のお祭りと舞踏衣装」展　神戸ファッション美術館

万博に合わせ、神戸ファッション美術館で「世界のお祭りと舞踏衣装」展が始まりました。

インドネシア、カメルーン、タイ、中国、ブータン、イタリア、コンゴ、グァテマラ、フィリピン、日本など。すべてに映像つき。

映像とともに紹介する今回の展示は、「生きた文化資産」として鑑賞が可能です。衣装の素材や構造、色彩や装飾技法のひとつひとつが、染織・刺繍・装身具といった視覚文化の粋を集めたクラフトの結晶であり、そこには地域ごとの自然環境と技術的知恵の関係が浮かび上がります。

グローバリゼーションの進行とともに、こうした衣装は観光資源や商品デザインのモチーフとして消費されることが増えましたが、その背後にある文脈を解読せずに取り出すことは、文化的搾取に等しい危うさを孕みます。だからこそ、視覚資料と動的映像を併置し、背景にある思想や身体技法まで丁寧に伝えるキュレーションの意義は極めて大きいと感じます。

Now showing at the Kobe Fashion Museum: an extraordinary exhibition of festival and dance costumes from around the world—each presented with immersive video footage.

Ethnic and dance costumes should not be reduced to mere spectacles of exoticism. They are intricate cultural texts, deeply embedded in local belief systems, social structures, rites of passage, and perceptions of nature. Festival attire, in particular, functions as a symbolic apparatus through which individuals assume communal roles and embody collective memory through the body.

This exhibition, which presents such garments alongside video documentation, is significant in that it treats these costumes not as static archives but as living cultural assets. Every element—from materials and silhouettes to colors and decorative techniques—represents the pinnacle of local visual culture and craft, reflecting an intimate dialogue between environment and artisanal knowledge.

In today’s globalized world, traditional attire is often consumed as a tourist attraction or mined as a surface motif for commercial design. Without engaging the cultural contexts that underpin them, such appropriations risk becoming forms of cultural exploitation. That is why curatorial efforts that integrate visual documentation with thoughtful interpretation of embodied practices and worldviews are so vital.

The Kobe Fashion Museum deserves high praise for advancing a perspective that transcends fashion itself, approaching dress as a form of cultural anthropology.

Photo: by courtesy of Kobe Fashion Museum