Takezaiku, or bamboo weaving, is an ancient form of Japanese art that involves taking a strong but inflexible material (bamboo) and making it not only moldable, but beautiful at the same time. It involves slicing the sinuous bamboo into strips, soaking them in water, and weaving them, generally into baskets and other utensils. Japanese tea…
Tag: art
Tokyo Design Week
Today (Oct 26, 2016) is the Opening Day for the annual Tokyo Design Week, held in Meiji Jingu Gaien (not to be confused with Meiji Jingu shrine, which is in Yoyogi Park). Hundreds of designers from university students to celebrated professionals display their work, host discussions and party like only design folks can. Pecha Kucha…
Yamato Antique Fair
On the third Saturday of each month, hundreds of sellers gather around the Yamato JR station in Kanagawa at a street fair focused on Japanese antiques. Sellers range from professional dealers to market hoppers with boxes of unsorted items they hope to rid themselves of quickly. For the visitor to Japan, the antique fair environment…
National Art Center
One of Tokyo’s modern architectural masterpieces, the National Art Center in Roppongi is best known for its huge front facade resembling a huge glass wave. To most people’s surprise, it is not a museum, but a space for hosting temporary exhibitions of art. Many important exhibitions of historic artists as well as contemporary designers (like Issey…
Zakka
The word Zakka 雑貨 can be translated into English as “a variety of goods” but the exact meaning isn’t so easy to pin down. Zakka originally referred to items you could buy at a Zakka-ya, a general store and perhaps precursor to today’s convenience stores. Though zakka can be used to describe items used in everyday life…
Ikebana 生け花
Ikebana, like tea ceremony, is more than art, but an integral part of Japanese culture. It is a discipline, taking years to master, yet practiced by millions who would attempt it. Unlike the more Western styles of floral design which focus more on color, ikebana focuses more on arrangement. Arrangements range from extremely minimal to…
Tokyo International Forum
Part Death Star and part bowels of a ship, the Tokyo International Forum is certainly an architectural masterpiece not to be missed. Built in 1996, this building houses eight exhibition halls, numerous restaurants and an outdoor antique fair on the third Sunday of the month. It is a few minutes walk from the JR Yurakucho…
Plastic Food
If you’ve ever tried to order food from a restaurant with a menu written in a language you don’t understand, you know the anxiety of eating out as a foreigner in Japan. Fortunately, Japan has solved your problem decades ago, by creating plastic replicas of menu items that sit in the front windows of many…
書道 Japanese Calligraphy
The written form of many scripts can be elevated to art, but the Japanese, and the Chinese long before them, have been creating writing as art for a very long time. Shodou, the Japanese version of calligraphy as an art has been done since at least the 7th century, though the Chinese had been writing…
Handmade Ukulele
At a recent ukulele event, a dozen ukulele artists from Tokyo and Yokohama gathered to show and sell their beautiful instruments. Obviously, the ukulele is not a native instrument to Japan, but the number of artists and visitors to the show demonstrated how popular it is in Japan. The ukulele came to Japan via Hawaii,…
365 JAPAN 