Yoshinaka Museum is a local history museum in Kiso Town, Nagano Prefecture, established in 1992 to preserve the legacy of Kiso no Yoshinaka and Tomoe Gozen. The 2021 renovation took a unique approach: given the scarcity of historical artifacts, we commissioned contemporary artists to create new works inspired by legends, stories, and landscapes of Kiso—treating these artworks as "new primary sources" for the museum.

As part of the creative team at NPO InVisible, I developed the core concept "Letters from Yoshinaka and Tomoe" and led the curatorial design. With few historical texts describing Yoshinaka and Tomoe in detail, their true nature remains elusive, and their reputations have shifted across eras. I believed that precisely because they are "mysterious figures," we could generate new "authentic" archives through artists' imagination and creation.

The museum invites each visitor to imagine the relationship between Kiso Town and these figures through spaces that evoke their unrecorded daily lives and messages. By encouraging personal imagination and engagement, we hope to deepen visitors' connection to Yoshinaka and Tomoe.