Exhibition review: 're:new tohoku' at Asia House

As a lover of Japanese craft and design, the highlight of my weekend was visiting re:new tohoku at Asia House in London – an exhibition of design and craft products from Tohoku. Unfortunately the exhibition has now finished, but the catalogue is available to download here.

The Tohoku region of Japan (the northeastern part of Japan’s main island, Honshu) is fighting to recover after having been devastated by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. re:new tohoku – a tradition of perfection brought to life for you celebrated how far Tohoku has come since the disaster by showcasing craft and design pieces from the region.

Items in the exhibition ranged from kitchenware to clothing and fashion, traditional crafts to innovative modern designs, and most pieces were brought to a British audience for the first time. Each piece was designed so carefully and made so well, whether it was something practical (like the Easy Kneeler – a picnic stool made from three small pieces of wood, that can be carried in a cloth pouch) or something rather impractical but gorgeous (like the music box-inspired wooden handbags by Kumanodo).

An initial batch of about 45 products from the Tohoku region were selected and presented online to a diverse group of people chosen by Adam Fulford (re:new tohoku Content Producer and CEO, Japanese Greats Inc.). The group were asked in an online survey to select their favourite and least favourite products, and the results of the survey (which broadly matched the line-up of products selected by the project’s Chief Curator, Mike Kato) showed which items might have commercial potential outside of Japan. Companies were then approached and asked if they would like to take part.

The re:new tohoku team are now interested to receive further feedback from the public: “Now the selection process is in your hands. If you are a professional buyer, we hope you will find items here with strong commercial potential. If you are an actual curator, we hope you will find items that would add value to a collection, or that might be a popular choice in a museum shop. If you are a designer, we hope you will find items that inspire you to propose a new creative collaboration with people in Japan. If you work in the media, we hope you will find items that inspire you to tell their stories more effectively than we can! And if you are simply a lover of beautiful objects, we hope you will find items that you’d like to own, or that you as a tourist would like to see being made in Japan. In all of these cases and more, we welcome your opinion so that we can help you and the makers of these products to take the most appropriate next step.”

“A commitment to perfection, for the good of all, is perhaps the ultimate ideal in Japan.” says the re:new tohoku team, and this exhibition certainly showed that perfection is possible. Despite the disaster last year, Tohoku’s craftspeople and designers appear to be going strong, and fighting back with a typical “ganbarou” (“Let’s do our best”) attitude.

For more information about re:new tohoku, please visit: www.renewtohoku.org.