Cities in Transition – Mori Art Museum 2026

The exhibition Cities in Transition examines how twenty-first-century urban environments are shaped by forces that operate far beyond municipal borders. Spanning architecture, multimedia installations, documentary photography, data visualizations, and large-scale sculptures, the exhibition presents the city as a living organism in constant negotiation with its residents, its geography, and its global economic context.
From megacities expanding at unprecedented speed to historic capitals grappling with depopulation, this exhibition reveals the diversity of human experience within rapidly shifting urban landscapes. Visitors encounter works that reflect both the complexity and fragility of contemporary cities — their energy, instability, inclusivity, and constraints.

At the heart of Cities in Transition is the question of how the urban future will be shaped: by technology, by climate urgency, by inequalities, or by collective imagination. Interactive digital works immerse visitors in alternative city models driven by sustainability, while architectural prototypes explore new relationships between density and nature.
The exhibition includes photographic essays documenting informal settlements, migration corridors, and urban mobility; sound installations capturing the pulse of different global cities; and conceptual works questioning the boundaries between physical and virtual space.
Through this diversity of approaches, the Mori Art Museum positions the city not merely as a built environment but as a powerful cultural and emotional ecosystem.