The act of exhibition or display helps create meaning for objects or performances from everyday life, mainly because there are always social phenomena like politics and culture that affect exhibition and display and, hence, meaning. If we look at Yamaguchi’s concepts of exhibition and display in Japanese culture, we can glimpse a deeper understanding of the relationship among art, display and exhibition, and meaning. One of these concepts is mitate. Mitate helps extend the image of an object. In other words, it is a technique by which the Japanese are able to form a meaning or connection between objects from daily life with mythical or classical images. In a way, mitate obscures the object being displayed because this object is associated or attached through its display or performance with another point of reference “When an object is displayed on ceremonial occasions, a classical reference—one familiar to anyone knowledgeable about history or the classics—is assigned to that object so that the immediate object merges with the object that is being referred” (Yamaguchi 58). In his classic Bridge and Door, Simmel asserts that a bridge is a direct line connecting two points. The bridge is different from the door because it connects meaning together whereas the door allows for isolation from external meaning. The concept of mitate is similar to Simmel’s bridge because it is a direct line connecting ordinary objects (via display or performance) with another reference like the two shores connected by a bridge. In this way, display and performance only add meaning that is more profound to the ordinary object being displayed, but it also acts as a bridge that allows for the transcendence of time. We see this in Yamaguchi’s explanation of Yama: “The word yama originally denoted mountain, but became associated with and assimilated to the place where deities reside. In this way, yama took on the sense of a mediating sp...