Collaboration

A sculptural lighting work utilising Iga Kumihimo, exploring containment and emergence—a volcano within a mountain, fire within a hearth, spirit within a body. Earth-toned Kumihimo gradients echo landscape and skin as the central form rises, light flaring at the crown before fading into darker hues. Kumihimo is rendered with restrained colour to foreground the intricacy of the weave; exposed threads at the base mark where “fire” begins, and light concentrates at the peak. An enclosing shield, usable as a divider, becomes mountain, hearth, and body, holding both illumination and shadow.

A series of chairs and tea vessels combining Seto Sometsuke Yaki porcelain tiles with traditional mortise-and-tenon joinery. The subtle fluctuations of deep indigo created through the “dami” technique, together with Shingama’s distinctive hand-painting, bring together different brushstrokes, straight lines, and curves, expressing the supple sense of change at the heart of Seto Sometsuke Yaki. Based on chairs used daily in the studio’s atelier and tea vessels long used at the kiln, the works reveal, through both form and technique, how craft emerges from the rhythms of everyday life.

A series of stackable boxes created using the Owari Shippo technique. Inspired by the kogetsudai—the sculpted gravel mound in Kyoto’s Ginkaku-ji gardens—its truncated cone form, quiet and minimal yet deeply symbolic, is reinterpreted through clarity and restraint rather than imitation. Each unit functions alone or combines into layered, architectural stacks. The surface features randomly hand-applied motifs rather than traditional ornament. Yet each mark is realised using a silver-wire technique, where a minimalist design approach coexists with highly precise craftsmanship.

A lighting series exploring Arimatsu Narumi Shibori’s tying and binding. Three-dimensional folding reveals complex textures and shifting patterns, while interacting dyes create blurred transitions that capture the material’s “living” response to placement and manipulation. Traces of stitching and folding remain visible, showing each stage of making. The resulting collection of lights transforms kataginu-inspired volumes (a traditional Japanese sleeveless vest with exaggerated, stiffened shoulders) into luminous objects—extending shibori from garments into the home.

A self-standing screen reinterpreting the traditional shoji archetype through Mino washi, light, and structural transformation. Developed with washi master Takanori Senda, the paper is formed to let fibres flow and accumulate vertically through water and gravity, creating a waterfall-like surface—dense at the top, gradually lighter below. The shoji’s rigid geometry is gently softened into an architectural form, while programmed backlighting reveals fibres, thickness, and internal variations over time. Paper, structure, and light come together as a single quiet spatial presence.

A console and lighting piece built from modular ceramic forms using the Mino Yaki technique. Identical modules are made to precise tolerances and assembled, rather than formed as a single body, extending a tableware tradition into furniture and lighting. Held by an internal armature, the same component yields both works through different configurations, unified by a contrasting material element. Precision meets the ancient. The firing of the wilful Oribe glaze disrupts uniformity, making each surface unique and celebrating the tension between the random and the perfect.