Colourful Shadows

Nendo designed for the Japan Pavilion at Expo 16 little objects removing all the informations about colours to let visitors discover other more essential aspect – revealed by shadows.

In line with the Expo’s underlying theme, “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life”, the 16 products designed by Nendo products for the Japanese pavilion, which include tableware and kitchen’s tools, are centered around the concept of food.

The gallery space is approximately 11x3 m, and a long black dining table, with 24 accompanying black chairs, has been placed in it as an exhibition stage to fit with the elongated shape of the room.

The table and chairs gradually increase in height the further into the room one goes, playing with the spectator’s sense of perspective as well as allowing him/her to look over all the items on display from the gallery entrance. However, as the products can not be seen in detail from the entrance, visitors may get curious and walk toward to see what they are. The chairs can be used as stepladders on which visitors may freely stand to inspect individual items more closely.

Although resembling an ordinary dinner table, by experimenting with the functional relationship between tables and chairs, the end result is a uniquely conceptual exhibition space that enables the spectator to view all of the products from various angles and distances. All the items exhibited are new designs, each one produced in collaboration with a different traditional Japanese craft or local industry. Furthermore, they all demonstrate the characteristically painstaking processes and techniques of Japanese craftsmanship in their material and textural finishes.

To best convey this wonderful attention to detail, the items on display are all black in colour. In the novelist Junichiro Tanizaki’s essay In Praise of Shadows, there is a passage about eating a yokan (a traditional sweet made from black bean paste) in the dark in order to develop a keener palette, just as in this exhibition, all information pertaining to colour has been removed to encourage the spectator to focus on other more essential aspects of the exhibited pieces. The idea is that the more closely one looks into the dark shades of something, the more one becomes aware of the rich colours hidden therein, and this is the concept behind the exhibition name Colourful Shadows; an attempt to shed some light on intricacies of Japanese craftsmanship that remain, as it were, hidden in the dark from the rest of the world.

Nendo, Tokoname-yaki for Koyo. Photo Hiroshi Iwasaki. Ceramic pieces blackened by smoking them with rice chaff and made into coasters, making full use of the material’s high absorbency

Nendo, Tokoname-yaki for Koyo. Photo Hiroshi Iwasaki

Nendo, Yamanaka-shikki for japan crafts Oshima. Photo Hiroshi Iwasaki. This bowl has been designed with the aim of bringing out the distinctive gloss and sheen of traditional Japanese lacquer to the fullest possible extent. The inside has a natural rippled finish, in stark contrast to the sharply stretched out silhouette of the mouth of the bowl

Nendo, Satsuma-yaki for Tsukino-mushi. Photo Hiroshi Iwasaki. This particular four-piece set is in the style of shirosatsuma. An enamel glaze has been applied to a white background to resemble the colour and shape of an egg. The entire piece demonstrates the effect of kannyu; a method whereby cracks are intentionally formed due to a difference in the rate of contraction between the ceramic and the enamel

Nendo, Satsuma-yaki for Tsukino-mushi. Photo Hiroshi Iwasaki

Nendo, Wakasa-nuri for Hashikura Matsukan. Photo Hiroshi Iwasaki. Chopsticks ordinarily come in pairs, but the rassen chopsticks are a single unit. They’re separated into two for eating, then rejoined into one form when not in use

Nendo, Nishijin-ori for Hosoo. Photo Hiroshi Iwasaki. Nendo focused on Kyoto's distinctive method of "paper weaving", and have used strips from naval maps published by the Maritime Safety Agency to make this placemats

Nendo, Nishijin-ori for Hosoo. Photo Hiroshi Iwasaki

Nendo, Takaoka-doki for TAKATAFACTORY. Photo Hiroshi Iwasaki. This particular cutlery is made from aluminium treated with a urethane baking finish. To accentuate the unique texture resulting from this process, the individual pieces have been designed with abstract circular, square, and triangular shapes, with matching section-shapes for each of their handles

Nendo, Ozu-washi for Ikazaki Shachu. Photo Hiroshi Iwasaki. In this piece, sumi, a black ink used in traditional calligraphy which is compatible with washi, has been mixed in to soften the paper material, and then compressed to form the shape of a small plate

Nendo, Ozu-washi for Ikazaki Shachu. Photo Hiroshi Iwasaki

Nendo, Satsuma-yaki for Tsukino-mushi. Photo Hiroshi Iwasaki. A bowl with a beautifully transparent glaze finish, incorporating the distinctive black used in Satsuma earthenware, which is a colouration that comes from the iron in the clay and glaze. It has a citrus fruit motif, resembling the shape of an orange or a grapefruit

Nendo, Satsuma-yaki for Tsukino-mushi. Photo Hiroshi Iwasaki

Nendo, Wakasa-nuri for Hashikura Matsukan. Photo Hiroshi Iwasaki. For this chopsticks Nendo explored ways of increasing their surface area in the hand, as a way of improving holding comfort, and discovered the natural form of the pleated cross-section

Nendo, Wakasa-nuri for Hashikura Matsukan. Photo Hiroshi Iwasaki. Made using the udukuri process, in which the wood surface is carved away with a metal brush, leaving only the hard wood grain, then lacquered the chopsticks and polished them again to bring out the wood grain as pattern

Nendo, Oodate-magewappa for Oodate Kougeisya. Photo Hiroshi Iwasaki. Boxes left in a disjointed spiral shape, in order to accentuate the edges of the material, as well as the fact that this tableware is indeed made from bending flat planks of natural wood. Depending on their size, they can be used as a chopstick holder, a toothpick holder, or a chopstick rest

Nendo, Oodate-magewappa for Oodate Kougeisya. Photo Hiroshi Iwasaki

Nendo, Edo-kiriko for Kimoto Glassware. Photo Hiroshi Iwasaki. Traditional edokiriko typically cover the surfaces of red or blue glass with several cuts, but this particular design has focused on the aesthetic quality of a single cut. It has taken a simple two-layered cylinder of transparent and black glass, etching into it a single stroke

Nendo, Edo-kiriko for Kimoto Glassware. Photo Hiroshi Iwasaki

Nendo, Edo-sashimono for Kahei Yamada. Photo Hiroshi Iwasaki. This box has been produced in collaboration with an Edo-style woodwork craftsman who inherits sophisticated technique that dates back to the early Edo Period, and its top and bottom have been tapered with diagonal carvings for easier stacking

Nendo, Mino-yaki for Miyama. Photo Hiroshi Iwasaki. By combining the traditional technique of kintsugi, which is the art of repairing broken ceramic ware with a glue lacquer, with the modern ingenuity and skill that sustained the rapid economic growth of post-war Japan, three identically shaped but different-coloured plates have been cut and refitted to form these unique designs

Nendo, Mino-yaki for Miyama. Photo Hiroshi Iwasaki

Nendo, Yamagata-imono for Gasen. Photo Hiroshi Iwasaki. Matching teapot and cup made out of traditional metal ware

Nendo, Yamagata-imono for Gasen. Photo Hiroshi Iwasaki

Nendo, Imari Arita-yaki for GEN-EMON GAMA. Photo Hiroshi Iwasaki. The main idea behind these ochoko cups is to let the owner experience the precise and skillful designs by sense of touch rather than sight

Colorful Shadows
Design: nendo

Colourful Shadows

Nendo designed for the Japan Pavilion at Expo 16 little objects removing all the informations about colours to let visitors discover other more essential aspect – revealed by shadows.

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