Sand Museum — Museum of sand

photo by WikiArtResearcher · CC BY-SA 4.0

photo by Mti · CC BY-SA 3.0

Sculptures made of nothing but sand and water: at the end of the exhibition they all return to the sand they were born from.

The world's first museum devoted exclusively to ‘sunazō’, sculpture made only of compacted sand and water, with no binders. The current permanent pavilion dates from 2012 (before that, from 2006, there were open-air tents), and every year it changes theme under the title ‘journey through the world of sand’, with sculptors invited from all over the world and directed by the sculptor and producer Katsuhiko Chaen. At the end of the exhibition the works are not kept: they return to the sand.

Facility on the Tottori dune, on the Fukube side, which every year hosts a different themed exhibition of sand sculptures on a monumental scale.

ℹ️ Open 9:00–18:00, last entry 17:30. Edition running as of 05/09/2026: ‘砂で世界旅行・スペイン編’, until 3 January 2027. Ticket price to be checked on the official site. Address: 〒689-0105 鳥取県鳥取市福部町湯山2083-17, tel. 0857-20-2231.

🚉 砂丘会館(鳥取砂丘) · 14 min walk

Sources: sand-museum.jp

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