In this exhibition you think about how the innate human ability to perceive nature (to sense nature) and the Japanese view of nature exist in our urbanised world. Could you tell us also how those views are reflected in contemporary design practices?
For me, Japanese creation is poetry. And I think nature already exists in the Japanese creation process. I do not know about contemporary design in general, but my intension is to conduct experiments towards the future in order to design senses. I always think about how people will feel, react, and be moved by the works presented in the exhibition. I would like to continue looking at the mechanism of senses and emotion, and incorporate them into my design.
How important is nature as a source of inspiration for your work as a designer?
Rather than nature itself, the most important thing for me is why and how nature inspires and move people. Therefore, I am not emulating the form of things existing in nature but trying to bring out emotions through my design. In recent years, I have been studying the essence that human beings would sense. It is neither arranging nor minimizing the forms, but integrating the phenomena and the low of the nature into the design, and see how it would affect and inspire ourselves. Because I believe there is a hint for the future somewhere in-between the essence of the design and the nature, I would like to pursue designing works with this aspect.
Could you please tell us about the Snow, your new work?
The Snow is a 15-meter-wide dynamic installation. Seeing the hundreds kilograms of light feather blown all over and falling down slowly, the memory of the snowscape would lie within people's heart would be bubbled up. This work would show unimaginable beauty by capturing the irregular movement of the nature. This is designed after the installation in 1997 that expressed the "snow" by the concept of the color "white".
How did people react to the installation in 1997?
At that time, I created the installation for the shop window. It caught interests not only from design-conscious people, but also from passer-by in the street and children. I still remember seeing the sight of many people stopped to see the installation. Since then, I had been hoping to realize and to see the installation in much larger, enormous scale.
What kind of materials did you use and why?
The material is feather, which I believe is the lightest material of the present day. The snowscape created with the feather would be more like the memory of snow lying with people rather than the actual snow.
The Waterfall will be exhibited to the public for the first time in Japan. How would you describe this work?
Waterfall is the world's largest optical glass table created after the Chair that disappears in the rain, undertaken for the Roppongi Hills in 2002. The work is created with a 4.8-meter huge optical glass, which is the material also used for the space shuttle. It overwhelms the audience by its appearance that seems as if the water falls energetically off a sheer cliff.
Do you consider these new works as works of design or art?
I believe everything related to the creation, not only art and design but also even fields like science and cuisine, will be discussed on the same stage due to the globalization of today. In this belief, I do not think I need to clarify if my works are art or design. I always have solid idea of what I would like to express first rather than having the category, then let it free to be categorized by each viewer. What is the most important to me is not my work to fit into one specific category but to inspire or talk to people's heart.
The theme of the exhibition is to rethink the Japanese perception of nature, which is to question how the unconscious power to sense the nature and the value of nature in Japan would affect the contemporary art and design. What is the value of nature that you believe?
I do not really know about the value of nature in Japan, but what I would like to do is not to reproduce the nature but to know how human senses function when experiencing nature. The most beautiful things I believe in this world is what is irreproducible, accidentally born, and disorder that cannot be understood by the theory. I believe the nature is the ultimate beauty in this world. The sunlight, soft breeze, and the harmony that leaves create, the variety of the essence in the nature touches our emotions. I intend not to reproduce them, but to pick the element that inspires our heart and integrate it into the design.
Sensing Nature
Mori Art Museum, Tokyo
24.7.2010 – 7.11.2010