Culture Screen – Introduction

About the Project

Culture Screen is a collaborative project led by Prof. Michael W. Schneider (Tokyo University of the Arts) and Prof. Dr. Ruth Mateus-Berr (University of Applied Arts Vienna). This initiative brings together emerging artists from both universities, around the Osaka Folding Screen (豊臣期大坂図屏風, Osaka-zu Byōbu), a remarkable early 17th-century Japanese folding screen that depicts scenes of Osaka during the Toyotomi period.

One of the rarest surviving examples of its kind, the screen has journeyed from Japan to Austria, where it has been housed for over 300 years at Schloss Eggenberg in Graz, an overlooked masterpiece with an incredible history.

Culture Screen thus invites new creative and artistic responses and dialogues to this historic artwork, offering fresh perspectives on both its significance and its narrative.

In addition to a traveling pop-up exhibition bridging Austria and Japan, the participating artists’ works and research are currently being showcased digitally at EXPO 2025 in Osaka (April 13 – October 13, 2025). Visitors from around the world can experience these artworks through Augmented Reality (AR) at the Austria Pavilion, powered by the Vienna-based platform Artivive.