Art Collaboration Kyoto, the fair that pairs Japanese commercial galleries with international peers to collaborate on shared stands, opens its sixth edition this week. The fair will take place from 7 to 9 November at the Kyoto International Conference Center, with fifty-two galleries in its main section.

The model is deliberately different from a conventional art fair. Rather than each gallery presenting alone, Japanese and overseas dealers share stands and curate joint presentations, a format designed to encourage lasting relationships rather than one-off sales. This year's edition includes a number of high-profile Western galleries, including Hauser & Wirth, Jeffrey Deitch and Carlos Ishikawa, alongside Asian galleries such as Seoul's Gallery Hyundai.

One of the most closely watched collaborations pairs Tokyo's Taro Nasu with Hauser & Wirth for a presentation focused on text in contemporary art, including works by Louise Bourgeois, Jenny Holzer, David Horvitz and Glenn Ligon. The pairing illustrates the fair's pitch: a small Tokyo gallery gains access to the roster of a global mega-gallery, while the larger gallery gains a foothold in a local conversation.

The fair also coincides with a programme of special exhibitions and projects across Kyoto. This year, the Scottish painter Andrew Cranston will present an installation at Ryosokuin Temple, a Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto's historic Gion district. Six years in, the fair has become a fixture of Japan's autumn art calendar, offering a slower, more collaborative alternative to the scale and spectacle of the big international fairs. For collectors, the appeal is a fair small enough to see in a day, with presentations shaped by conversation between two galleries rather than by a single dealer's programme.