These colorful shutters feature beautifully painted folk scenes with insets of flowers, including peonies  (Photo: Saskia Gilmour)

Kita-senju Shutter Art

A new Japanese art form takes to the streets

Saskia Gilmour   - 1 min read

Shutter art seems to be one of Japan's least appreciated art forms. All around the country it is not uncommon to see murals painted on the closed shutters of various residences and businesses. An art form in its own rights, they tend to picture traditional stories, local themes and totems, or even outlandish pop-culture references. Perhaps one of the most recognized of Tokyo neighborhoods to see shutter art is at the stalls lining Asakusa's Senso-ji Temple.

Yet the Kita-senju neighborhood in Adachi, in north-east Tokyo, really makes shutter art its own. A popular shopping and restaurant street, Shukuba machi-dori, is endowed with an array of peculiar shutter art. It offers a phenomenal insight to this what is both a sleepy-eyed and vibrant neighborhood.

Saskia Gilmour

Saskia Gilmour @saskia.gilmour

Saskia is an obsessive compulsive traveler with Japan as her #1 preferred destination. Her appreciation for Japan's unique culture was cultivated through several years of studying the language during high school and also an otaku phase about which she prefers to no longer speak.