The Hidden Forest

Noda Michiyo



What is seaweed to Japanese people? For thousands of years, knowledge of ocean algae’s astonishing nutritional value has been passed down through the generations, and today modern science confirms that seaweed is an anti-aging food that prevents lifestyle-related diseases and enhances beauty.

Yet now, as in the past, seaweed’s role as a food obscures its image as a rootless plant-like organism from the sea. What arrives at the dinner table cut into tiny pieces bears almost no resemblance to its original form, and few people ponder what shape it once held or what color it might have been while it was alive and growing in the ocean.

Noda Michiyo has been making pressed seaweed art for the past 30 years, has conducted workshops throughout Japan, and has even taught Japan’s Emperor and Empress how to press seaweed.

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