The new museum aims to reconcile a neighbourhood near Kyoto wracked by racism and inflamed by the legacy of war

The greeting at the Utoro Peace Memorial Museum is impossible to miss. Emblazoned on a huge banner hanging on a wall, it says: “This is where we live. This is where we meet.” The message is simple, but there was a time when Utoro, a small neighbourhood near Kyoto in western Japan, was wracked by racism and division, inflamed by the legacy of war and colonialism.

The museum is proof that two apparently irreconcilable communities – Japanese and ethnic Koreans – can come together to confront, and heal, the scars of history.