The City of Trieste announces that the Civic Museum of Oriental Art will be closed to the public from 18 September to 5 November to allow for major work on the heating, cooling and lighting systems, to mark the 25th anniversary of its opening.

Upon reopening, visitors will be able to explore the refurbished spaces, including a brand-new immersive gallery, designed to offer an evocative and synaesthetic experience of Eastern figurative art.

Inspired by Japanese philosophy, which encourages the appreciation of a subject through allusion and metaphorical references, the video installation will take visitors on an evocative journey through the seasons, as depicted in the museum’s masterpieces. Prints, paintings, textile motifs and porcelain decorations will thus be presented from a fresh perspective, creating new meanings and connections between works, materials and artistic languages.

From November, a packed programme of events will also kick off to celebrate the 25th anniversary, featuring in-depth talks with renowned specialists, hands-on workshops, activities for young people and performances. The programme is designed to bring diverse audiences closer to the collections and the culture of the East, transforming the anniversary into an opportunity for encounter, discovery and participation.

Almost like a story, the exhibit begins with the relationship between Trieste and the Orient, which started in the eighteenth century and expanded in the nineteenth century, with the Austrian Lloyd ships that set sail from Trieste and travelled through the Suez Canal to the distant coasts of India, China and Japan.

Thanks to this trade, we can now admire beautiful collections of embroidered silk clothing and fabrics from the late Qing Dynasty (nineteenth century), porcelain from the Song Dynasty (eleventh to thirteenth century) to the Late Qing Dynasty (nineteenth century), sculpture and objects from China associated with Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism, as well as porcelain, kimonos and masks from Japanese kabuki folk theatre.

The true highlights of the museum, however, are undoubtedly the collection of prints by the great masters of Japanese Art, such as Hiroshige and Hokusai, including the world-famous Great Wave, which greatly influenced Western graphic art, and a rich collection of arms and armour with its incredible Samurai armour and extremely sharp and lethal katana and wakizashi swords.