The Nara Annex — The 8 Museum

established 5 november 2025

coordinates 34°41′N, 135°50′E

collection 28 works accessioned; a selection of eight exhibited below

holdings on permanent loan from the built environment of Nara; not one has been moved

premises the city of Nara and its park, in which the deer have precedence

hours continuous; the deer keep no hours and bow for biscuits

admission attention

An annex of The 8 Museum is a city in which encounters have occurred. Unlike the annexes of other institutions, it holds no building, employs no staff, and has acquired nothing. Its collection is held on indefinite loan from the world and remains installed where it was found — on yellow enamel, magenta signage, a pink wall, and temple wood — maintained, without their knowledge, by the residents, the weather, and the municipal services of the city itself.

The Nara Annex was established on 5 November 2025, twenty-eight works accessioned in a day in the company of some twelve hundred sika deer, who are sacred, unbothered, and everywhere. The committee recognises the deer as the annex's de facto maintainers, on the grounds that they have been in charge of the park for thirteen centuries and show no sign of delegating. The annex lies thirty kilometres from Osaka and was reached from it, on the way north from Kumano. Each of the annex's works was photographed in situ, untouched, under existing conditions, and left exactly as it was. Visitors to Nara are advised that the collection remains on public display. Every work was last verified on the day of its encounter; what the weather, the council, and the ordinary attrition of the world have since done to them, the museum does not undertake to know. The register records the encounter, not the object; an encounter, once entered, is beyond the reach of the weather.