First off, it's important to stress that NO-MA is not a specialty outlet for outsider art. Rather, its mission is to present "borderless art." What makes the museum unique is its policy of displaying work by insiders (regular artists) alongside that of outsiders. A case in point was NO-MA's opening exhibition in 2004. This event presented the work of five artists: the contemporary artists Morimura Yasumasa and Takamine Tadasu; Ito Yoshihiko, who was then living in a facility called the Shigaraki Youth Dormitory; Iwasaki Tsukasa, who had continued to create his work while resident in a mental hospital (after passing away in 2006, a retrospective of his work was also held at NO-MA); and the Meiji era Japanesque ceramist Miyagawa Kozan, whose unique, decorative aesthetic was lauded in the West. This opening exhibition, with works that transcended a variety of borders occupying the same space, clearly testified to the completely entire unique concept and helped define "borderless art." A description on a flier for the event also provides an interesting insight into the idea:


"'Handicapped person' is one word and 'artist' is another. The position and system to which each belongs is clearly different. But if one conceives of these people instead as 'expressive individuals,' superseding the original division, they seem to have something in common. And interestingly, the key to enjoying art, 'the state of various human pleasures,' begins to assume a much clearer form."


While dealing with a wide range of problems in the exhibition, the event was a highly stimulating display of art. With this event as a point of departure, NO-MA was quickly recognized for its singular concept and organizational ability.

Hata Yoshiko has served as the art director at NO-MA since its opening. Hata, who had previously been active in bringing together art and welfare, explains, "I'd been involved in this kind of work for 20 years, but I was frustrated with the lack of growth in the field and had come to feel that the more exhibitions of handicapped creators you do, the wider the gap becomes between them and people working in the art field. It's strange because a lot of people have the idea that this kind of work isn't connected to art and sadly there's still a strong feeling that it's only connected to the welfare field. That's the kind of thinking I wanted to do away with here."


Approximately two years prior to NO-MA's opening, a preparatory committee was formed. People representing a variety of viewpoints (art, welfare, the local region) were assembled and the original concept for the facility was cobbled together. Hata says, "'Borderless art' was a term that was devised by the committee. And NO-MA came into existence when the then-division chief (now, director) of the Shiga Prefectural Social Welfare Organization Kitaoka Kengo made a proposal to the prefecture that something interesting be done connected to art of the handicapped. Since just starting a gallery for handicapped people to use didn't seem very novel and would have been quite limited, we decided to assemble people from a variety of fields to take part in this planning committee."


Still, it's amazing like borderless art, with absolutely no precedent, came to be used as the theme of a prefectural facility. According to Hata, "Compared to other prefectures, welfare workers in Shiga have a much greater awareness of creative activities for the handicapped. There was a man named Itoga Kazuo (2) who invariably pops up in welfare textbooks, and I have the sense that his educational philosophy is still firmly rooted in the area. There is also a tradition of facilities like the Shigaraki Youth Dormitory and Ichibaku Dormitory that is derived from the Omi Home for Mentally Handicapped Children that Itoga created."


So, the fact that a museum which connects welfare and art was created in Shiga Prefecture with Hata as its director may well have been inevitable.

At this point, I'd like to introduce a few of the exhibitions NO-MA has organized since its inception: Centering on the theme of sewing expressions, the "Sewing People" (spring 2005) exhibition included insider and outsider artists and embroidery from Central Asia. To subvert previously existing images of the "old," the "Chronicles of Elderly Frontrunners" exhibition (fall 2006) collected extreme and excessive expressions by older people from around the country. The "'Hey, Why Don't You Stop By?': Omi Hachiman Living Room Land" exhibition (winter 2007), organized by Yokohama's Art Lab Ova, consisted of a variety of decorations from living rooms that were installed in the museum. And "Crossing Spirit: The Collection de l'Art Brut and Japanese Outsider Art" (spring 2008), a collaborative effort with the Collection de l'Art Brut (3), located in Lausanne, Switzerland, became NO-MA's first traveling exhibition and brought the museum to national attention.

In addition to its unique outlook, it's important to note NO-MA's relationship not only with the local community but also with foreign countries. NO-MA was originally created by renovating the Noma Residence, a 70-year-old machiya formerly used for making tea-ceremony rooms, which was located in a residential district for Omi merchants that had been designated as a preservation area for historical buildings. One of NO-MA 's charms is the element of surprise offered by its innovative events in the relaxed townscape (4) that is frequented by strolling tourists, but another attractive point is the deepening relationship it has developed with the area through a steady flow of exhibitions. For a number of the exhibitions, an unoccupied house, the Yoshida residence, has been used as a secondary exhibition space, and the museum has become a model of how to make use of old machiya in Omi Hachiman. In addition, as with the above-mentioned "Omi Hachiman Living Room Land," it's not uncommon for a project to incorporate fieldwork in the local area. This and the Biwako Biennale, an exhibition which was also developed by making using of empty machiya, has created a clear association between art and Omi Hachiman, and at present the number of galleries and department stores that are making use of the old houses and shops that are finding new applications for them are rapidly increasing.


Meanwhile, the "Crossing Spirit" exhibition, in which foreign and Japanese artists were shown on an equal footing while another special exhibition of Japanese outsider artists called "Japon" was held simultaneously in Lausanne, proved to be so successful and attract so many visitors that it was extended for six months longer than originally planned. As a result, a large-scale exhibition of Japanese outsider art was quickly scheduled in the spring of 2009 for next year at the Musee de la Halle Saint-Pierre in Paris. Though small, NO-MA is gradually becoming the main source of information for outsider art in Japan.


What is Hata's take on this turn of events? "In the West, outsider art exhibitions are often held in museums, creating nothing so much as a huge market for the work. As almost all of the Japanese artists were previously unknown, the repercussions of the 'Japon' exhibition are massive. It's nice to become so widely recognized, but if things continue on like this, valuable Japanese works will be rapidly lost to foreign countries. The people associated with NO-MA have set up an NPO which has bought some of the works in order to preserve them, and we're also trying to set up a guardianship system to preserve the artists' rights. But there isn't any precedent for this niche field of activities combining welfare and art, so it's always a difficult situation financially, and that's what we have to begin to address more in the future."


Will outsider art, with its delicate aspects, continue to spread around the world and be recognized as something attractive? Or will it simply be dismissed as an entry- level pursuit for contemporary art, which has a tendency to favor the conceptual and rational? Whatever the case, NO-MA's attempt to introduce borderless art will stand as a highly significant "invention." In fact, when the "Crossing Spirit" exhibition made its way to Tokyo, the show apparently made a huge impact on the art students who saw it. As a "new place for art where energy gathers and is conveyed into people's expressive abilities," NO-MA should be seen as the true horizon for the "outsider art" boom.

Notes (1) In addition to the NO-MA exhibitions, a Henry Darger show was held at the Hara Museum in Tokyo in the spring of 2007, "Art Brut: abcd collection" was held at the Museum of Modern Art, Shiga in the fall of 2008, and "Creators of Outsider Art" was held at the Setagaya Art Museum in Tokyo in the fall of 2008.

(2) Itoga Kazuo (1914-1967) was known as the "father of welfare for the mentally handicapped" in Japan. Along with a visionary philosophy of welfare, Itoga's Omi Home for Mentally Handicapped Children, founded in 1946, put his ideas into practice by providing mentally handicapped people and war orphans with education and productive activities all under one roof. Among his many books are Let These Children Be the Light of the World.

(3) Based on the concept of "raw" art, the Collection de l'Art Brut, initially a group of works amassed by the French painter Jean Dubuffet, was opened in 1976. Since then, it has become widely known as one of the most unusual museums in the world. Its collection currently includes over 30,000 items.

(4) In addition to the merchants' district in Omi Hachiman, there is a host of tourist sites including Hachiman Canal, Himure Hachiman Shrine, Suigo Boat Ride, and the Western-style architecture of William Merrell Vories, an American who relocated to the town at the turn of the 20th century. In the mid-60s, the annual number of visitors to Omi Hachiman was about 50,000, but since then the number has skyrocketed to nearly three million people. For more information, visit the the Omi Hachiman Tourism Association website: www.omi8.com

In 1990, Hata became the head of a painting club at the Mukogawa Suzukake Workshop, a production facility for the mentally handicapped in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture. In the late 90s, she was involved in planning an exhibition of films by the late documentary director Sato Makoto such as Mahiru no hoshi (Stars in the Middle of the Afternoon) and Hanako, and the "I'm More Excited Than I was Yesterday" exhibition at the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka. She is also the author of several picture books.