[ Craft x Tech Lecture Series Vol.1] “Kawatsura Shikki x Sabine Marcelis” @ The University of Tokyo

Craft x Tech is an initiative to bridge the gap between traditional Japanese craft and contemporary technology. Our goal is to create a novel and unique body of artworks that express both the history and future potential of these beautiful materials and techniques. With this in mind, we have selected a group of designers and artists whose work we respect and admire and who we believe will bring new and meaningful insights to these centuries-old master crafts traditions. For the inaugural edition, 6 traditional crafts from 6 prefectures of the Tohoku region and 6 designers/creators collaborated. Furthermore, as part of this project, the participating creators and craftsmen are invited to hold a special lecture series.

The first lecture which was held at the University of Tokyo featured world renowned Artist/Designer Sabine Marcelis and “Kawatsura Shikki*” (traditional lacquerware from Akita region) craftsman Keita Sato. They both presented their works as well as their passion for the Craft x Tech collaboration around “Kawatsura Shikki”. * Kawatsura Shikki is lacquerware that was born in Yuzawa City, Akita Prefecture. It originated in sword sheaths, bows, armours and other weapons lacquered at this place about 800 years ago. Today its main products are bowls and plates. The manufacturing process is performed in the order of wood making, grounding, painting, and decoration. A high-strength vessel is made by the unique ground coating in which raw lacquer is applied over and over again.

Lecture by Keita Sato, Kawatsura Shikki

Keita Sato
Representative Director of Sato Shoji Co., Ltd. Sato Shoji is a leading company preserving the history of Kawatsura Shikki, a traditional craft from Yuzawa City, Akita Prefecture, with a history spanning over 800 years since the Kamakura Period. The company actively engages in initiatives such as overseas expansion to cities like London, Paris, and Monaco, and collaborations with designers and brands, all aimed at bridging tradition to the future.

Community of Kawatsura Shikki Inheriting 800 Years of Tradition

A village in Yuzawa City, Akita Prefecture, where lacquerware craftsmen live within a 2km radius.

Kawatsura Shikki boasts an 800-year tradition, distinguished by the use of natural wood, natural lacquer, and meticulous hand-painting by craftsmen using brushes. Unlike traditional craft production, which typically involves a division of labor across different locations, our company employs craftsmen in-house, making us unique in the Kawatsura Shikki industry for our internal division of labor.

Located in Yuzawa City, on the southern side of Akita Prefecture, our area is nestled in a basin surrounded by mountains. The 31 to 32 stages of Kawatsura Shikki production are executed through a division of labor, with craftsmen residing within a 2.5-kilometer radius of the workplace to streamline the workflow. For instance, near the river, there are woodworkers, and above them, there are undercoaters. The locations where they live have not changed much since ancient times. There are challenges to living harmoniously together, but we have maintained this division of labor for 800 years.

Successor Issues and Lifestyle Changes Plague Traditional Craft Production Areas

Kawatsura Shikki is made from natural wood and natural lacquer and finished by hand painting. The craftsmen make their own tools to ensure they are easy to use.

In Craft x Tech, we collaborate with “Traditional Crafts of Japan,” designated by the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) in Japan. “Traditional Crafts of Japan” refers to certified crafts that meet government criteria regarding techniques, processes, and production scale. To achieve this certification, ensuring a sufficient number of craftsmen and protecting those in each part of the production process has become a significant challenge for traditional craft production areas.

I am currently 48 years old. When I was born, our company had about 100 staff members. Nowadays, we’re down to just 8, and the average age of our staff is around 60. We are making efforts to welcome young people by inviting students from the lacquer art department of an art university and receiving support from the local government to train successors. However, a major problem is that it takes time to develop a skilled craftsman. While a craftsman’s basic skills may be learned in three years, it takes more than 10 years to become fully skilled and able to make their own tools. Furthermore, our industry faces declining sales due to lifestyle changes. Lacquerware, once highly appreciated as gifts for weddings, funerals, and celebrations, has lost popularity, with many of these items now replaced by catalog gifts. The long-term decline, compounded by the impact of COVID, has also affected us. Additionally, the soaring prices of raw materials, such as lacquer, have increased by about 20% every year

Seeking New Demand, Challenging the Overseas Markets

I have inherited this job from my parents and feel a strong desire to pass it on to someone else to ensure its continuation. My biggest mission and goal right now are to create an industry that my children would want to inherit. So, even though we are a small company, we have been boldly tackling new initiatives to represent something new.

Our company is currently active overseas as well. About two weeks ago, we had exhibitions in London and Paris. Since last year, we’ve been participating in events popular in Europe where people dress up as anime characters, and these events have been very popular. During these events, we’re offering free personalized name engravings for customers, and European customers often ask us to write their names in katakana or kanji. As a result, we’ve had long queues forming. In the business-to-consumer (BtoC) market, we have recently been focusing on events like this. In our overseas expansion efforts so far, we initially focused on proposing to restaurants. However, lacquerware has a significant weakness: it can’t be used in dishwashers. Therefore, we took a break from approaching restaurants and instead focused on entering high-end shops, such as those in Monaco. Now, our products are being sold at about 10 retail stores. Although we faced some setbacks due to the COVID-19 pandemic for about three years, starting from this year, we’d like to expand our operations overseas again.

Innovation of Kawatsura Shikki Deriving from Design Collaborations

In terms of design collaboration, I’ve teamed up with Mr. Yoshimoto to create a lighting fixture called “ARC” at the entrance of this venue. However, we’ve realized the need to deviate somewhat from our previous policy of using primarily wood. Considering factors like strength, there are many aspects that simply can’t be achieved with wood anymore. Therefore, we’ve started using aluminum and developing lacquer application techniques for different materials to create products that don’t peel off. Starting from next year, we hope to propose lacquering on materials such as glass to everyone.

In the lacquerware industry, we really need to increase sales somehow. The reason for needing to increase sales is that without craftsmen in each part, there won’t be any production areas left. For example, if we switch from wood to plastic, the wood craftsmen will disappear. If we switch to spray coatings, the craftsmen who apply the coatings will vanish. So, destroying production areas is relatively easy. However, if we don’t find this interesting and enjoyable, there’s no point in doing it. We also want to work in a way that looks cool and fun to attract as many people as possible to the industry. While there are risks in doing various things, I think there are also positive elements that arise from taking action. This year, I would like to work on various projects with Sabine, and I hope that traditional craft regions will collaborate with various designers in the future.

Lecture by Designer Sabine Marcelis

Sabine Marcelis
Based in Rotterdam, Netherlands, Sabine is an artist/designer who provides designs to numerous global brands and exhibits artwork in renowned galleries. In 2023, she was honored with one of the most prestigious awards in the design field, "EDIDA Designer of the Year." She is currently one of the most prominent creators capturing the world's attention.

Material & production process as inspiration

I am based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and I love to work with materials and production processes. I think, specifically, glass and resin are materials I work with a lot, because you can really play with the transparency and light.
With my team, we work on quite a vast variety of projects. We’re a studio for material installation and object design and forever in search of magical moments within materiality and manufacturing processes to create unexpected experiences. Also, we collaborate a lot with materials specialists. We actually share a building with the resin workshop, so they are also a big part of our ecosystem. We’re really able to build experience together, try things together, try and go bigger, experiment and it’s a really nice way to work directly with the production.

I’m not the type of designer that sits down and sketches an idea and then tries to figure out how to produce it. It’s more, I start with the material and the production process as the inspiration. I really like to understand how color behaves within materials as well. And here, you really see that color is not something applied at the end as a flat thing. It’s in the material itself, it’s three-dimensional and you also experience color also very differently when the surface is matte as opposed to polished.

Materiality activated by natural elements

I’m really interested in incorporating natural elements that activate the materials that I work with. I also love to work with sunlight. I also love to work with sunlight. And I really love the fact that a static object can inhabit much more space that’s changing throughout the day because of the sunlight hitting in.
A few years ago I was asked by a watch brand to design a way that they could present their new timepiece. So I wanted to play with sunlight because the original timepiece was a sundial. It was in a very iconic architectural pavilion which was a perfect circle and then we created this pillar that would be reflecting in different colors as the day went on.

Then just last year I was asked to design an installation for a light festival in Saudi Arabia. I wanted to revisit the idea of the sundial but to elevate it by moving each, or having a number of different pillars and each of them moved slightly, so that when the sun hits them it causes a myriad of reflections. So during the day, because I think that’s really a shame with light festivals that they’re mostly interesting at night when the lights turn on, but during the day you can also play with the natural light that’s around.

And it’s made out of a two-way mirror, the same as with police interrogation rooms. So wherever there is more light that side you can see. Because there’s actually artificial light inside of these columns as well that, during the day you don’t see because there’s more lights outside. But then, as the light outside becomes less, we start to see the lines inside of the pillars. And it becomes even more intense and starts to also interact with the surroundings, when it casts this glow of light. It’s just two individual white lines that get tinted because of the color of the glass and they get multiplied because of the mirror effect. And it gets even more multiplied when it’s reflecting in the surrounding water creek as well. So it’s always very much about trying to get more from a material than what it physically holds.

Material harnessing the forces of nature

Where I want to go next with the studio is to harness the forces of nature. Since the first solar panel cell that was ever invented, I think we’ve come a very long way. When you think about solar panels integrated into public art, there’s still a long way to go in my opinion. For me, this is much more interesting when a solar panel can mimic a different material, like these terra-cotta tiles. Or there’s even some research about transparent solar cells. And it got me thinking because I work a lot with glass which is produced in a layered way. And solar panels are also produced with a laminating glass process. So I wanted to see if I can combine those without having that false aesthetic of the solar cell.

We did a pilot project for Audi last year. These electric car chargers are harnessing the force of the sunlight, which is hitting the object during the day anyway, and converting that into energy to pass on for charging. I really see that as the future of anything artistic in public space that you can also have it generate electricity without it screaming “I am a solar cell.”

I get to design something awesome with the craft tech team. And I want to approach this project the same way as I approach other projects, which is to let the material and the process really inspire me. And I want to explore different color options and texture finishes.

[Event details]
Dates: August 5, 2023, 4:00 pm to 7:30 pm
Venue: ENEOS Hall, The Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology
       1st Floor, South Wing, Building 3, 4-6-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 
Speakers: Keita Sato, Sabine Marcelis

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