Creative Kyoto
Honyarado: Losing Kyoto’s Counter-Culture Hub
Opening in 1972, Honyarado became a hub and stronghold of anti-war activities and a symbol of youth counterculture. We campaigned for the release of political prisoners in South Vietnam and South Korea, and supported court cases against obscenity charges.
Read MoreMio Heki: Kintsugi Artist and Urushi Master
“I see urushi as a way to connect ourselves and our culture with nature in so many ways. Because urushi and kintsugi art is all natural, it is a good way to remind ourselves that we are all part of nature, being pieces of our universe.”
Read MoreMatsumoto Sachiko: Bringing Japanese Crafts to the World
Matsuyama Sachiko is the founder of monomo, a business linking Japanese craftspeople with an international audience and encouraging cultural inspiration.
Read MoreStepping into Metamorphosis: The Shoes of Masaya Kushino
“My work is not just about the technical details of making a shoe, but an exploration of a fantasy, a story or something historical.”
Read MoreChiemi Ogura: Bamboo Craftswoman
Chiemi weaves her intricate bamboo jewellery from her inner-west Kyoto home studio. Everything step is done by her and by hand, from cutting strips from raw, Kyoto-sourced stalks, to the final dying that washes the pieces in unique wine, turquoise, and emerald shades.
Read MoreKYOTOGRAPHIE Breaks New Ground
Kyotographie seems to be not merely bringing people to hidden or at least underutilized parts of Kyoto, but taking an active role in developing and revitalizing areas that are in dire need of a pick-me-up.
Read MoreNo Translation Needed: KYOTOGRAPHIE 2017
The theme of KYOTOGRAPHIE 2016 is “Love,” a sentiment that is seemingly-universal yet highly-fraught in ways that vary widely from culture to culture. The festival’s organizers do not try to reconcile the differences but rather lay out the debate in spatial and visual terms.
Read MoreVassal Beats Lord: Benkei and Yoshitsune in the Noh Play Ataka
Ataka reveals an aspect of unique Japanese spirituality. While it is a challenging performance for actors that requires subtle skills instructed orally by a master, the story structure involves a powerful psychodrama, and the roles and presentation evoke the audience’s emotions directly by the senses without depending completely on the words.
Read MoreIn the Realm of the Bicycle
I first noticed them, the fact of their everywhereness, during my daily commute to and from work, as they stood and leaned and laid and zipped around in all the conditions of life itself…
Read MoreNishio Haruo: Thatcher
North of Kyoto city lie the satellite communities that make up the country town or cho known as Miyama — famed for its thatched houses, and home to thatcher Nishio Haruo…
Read MoreKyoto’s Photo Family
With some 140 published books over four decades, Mizuno Katsuhiko has been influential in defining Kyoto’s natural beauty and stimulating Kyoto people’s pride in their city. As a child, Mizuno’s daughter Kayu accompanied him on many of his photo outings…
Read MoreKyoto Excellence: Kyotographie International Photography Festival, 3rd Edition
APRIL 18-MAY10: Fourteen exhibitions on the theme of “TRIBE,” spread across Kyoto in brilliantly-coordinated venues ranging from a sub-temple of the city’s first Zen monastery to traditional inner-city machiya to a temporary Shigeru Ban cardboard-columned pavilion in front of City Hall to “anti-fashionista” Rei Kawakubo’s local Comme Des Garcons concept store.
Read MoreTone Poems: Joel Stewart’s Continuing Artistic Odyssey
The sheer variety of images ranges between the hyper-realistic and the abstract: a gleaming white-and-blue ceramic sake ewer that could almost be plucked from the panel, a quiver of glowing vertical lines reminiscent of Star Trek’s transporter in mid-operation.
Read MoreMigrating Genius: The Art & Life of Jack Madson
“There’s so much to learn from birds. When I was a child they were my first absorbing fascination in life.”
Read MorePhotography, Community, Space: Kyotographie’s Lucille Reyboz and Yusuke Nakanishi
Our theme will be “Tribe,” but not in an ethnic sense—it’s more in the sense of a community that shares the same sense of values.
Read MoreListening to Vegetables: The Art of Tanahashi Toshio
The pleasure of shojin is to find freedom within limitation of using only vegetables.
Read MoreIn Praise of Clay: Robert Yellin muses on the ties that bind art, life and environment
Kyoto ceramic connoisseur Robert Yellin muses on the ties that bind art, life and environment
Read MoreKawamura Junko on Noh
“The actor is not moving, but the pose is full of pent-up energy. Think of a spinning top…”
Read MoreShakuhachi Meditations
Mediating between Nature and Imagination: Sudo Hisao
Sudo Hisao’s latest sculpture, not yet dry, stands in his ceramic studio: a giant acorn, bursting with life, erotic tip pointing upwards…
Read MoreNishikawa Senrei: Nihon Buyo
“You have to tear down the old completely sometimes to build the new in the spirit of the old. When I revive a piece, everything changes. Even if the performers are all the same, we’ve grown, so through repetition the piece will change.”
Read More
