As a retort to the doom-mongering prognostications of AI’s dominance over human creativity, it is momentarily comforting to tally up the things it cannot do. It cannot throw a pot, blow glass, beat metal, weave bamboo or turn wood. Perhaps, when it has assumed absolute control of human consciousness and the machinery of mass production, it will be able to. But for now, throwing a vessel and weighing its heft in your hand, or carving a tray and sizing up its form with your eye are still the preserve of skilled craftspeople, using techniques their distant ancestors would recognise.
Laconic simplicity … Hyakkō: 100+ Makers from Japan. Photograph: Jeremie Souteyrat/Japan House London
On show at London’s Japan House is the work of more than 100 pairs of eyes and hands, constituting an overwhelming profusion of human creativity, corralled into an exhibition of laconic simplicity. About 2,000 objects – bowls, trays, cups, metalwork, glassware and some perplexing bamboo cocoons – are grouped according to their makers on long, softly lit display tables. At first glance, you might think you have stumbled into an especially refined John Lewis homeware department, but then you notice the delicate black and red lacquer work, the gleaming gold on the inside of a perfectly shaped sake cup, the intricacy of the bamboo and some eccentrically shaped vessels, like alien seedpods, that look like ceramics but turn out be a kind of petrified leather.
Craftsmanship that gives practical and beautiful shape to raw materials has been part of Japanese life for centuries. Yet historically, the products of formal crafts such as urushi (lacquerware) and metalwork were conceived as costly artefacts to be admired, well out of reach of ordinary people. It wasn’t until the 1920s that the folk craft movement, known as mingei, refocused attention on the unassuming beauty of hand-crafted utilitarian objects.
Today, despite the prevalence of industrial production, artisans across Japan continue to create everyday utensils and vessels, employing traditional methods that respond to the particular qualities of their chosen material. No two crafts are the same, and each artisan brings a unique imprimatur to the process of creation.
In a two-year odyssey, the exhibition’s curator, Nagata Takahiro, travelled the length of Japan, seeking out craftspeople hunkered in country sheds and city flats, shaping clay, beating metal and working wood, quietly getting on with creating. The aim was to get a sense of the numbers and experiences of people involved in sustaining traditional Japanese crafts. It turned out to be an extensive and thriving network, with artisans using social media to showcase their wares and connect with buyers, galleries, craft fairs and other makers.
Beauty and strength … works on display in Hyakkō: 100+ Makers from Japan. Photograph: Jeremie Souteyrat/Japan House London
Shinichi Moriguchi spends his time crafting chestnut wood trays known as wagatabon, traditional utensils dating from the Edo period with distinctive chisel marks inscribed vertically across the wood grain. Chestnut wood is especially resistant to water and decay and the chiselled lines resemble rippling waves, conjuring a sense of beauty and strength. No two surfaces are alike. Moriguchi lives in Kyoto and runs an atelier in the surrounding mountains, teaching students the craft of wagatabon carving. “It only requires simple tools – a wooden mallet and chisels – so anyone can learn,” he says.
Before becoming a metalsmith, Yumi Nakamura worked in interior design, so her approach to craft is inflected by a strong awareness of space and how objects appear in settings. Her kettles and tea vessels are exquisitely sculptural, with slim, exaggeratedly curved handles. Although the process of hammering and shaping sheets of metal can be arduous, she marvels at how objects can be drawn out from inanimate matter. “Unlike ceramics or glass, metalwork lets you keep touching the form,” she says. “You can keep hammering for ever, so deciding when to stop is crucial.” Reflecting different strengths and physiques, the hammer marks also embody the maker’s character.
Cherishable … Hyakkō: 100+ Makers from Japan. Photograph: Jeremie Souteyrat/Japan House London
Amplifying the now cliched notion of wabi-sabi, which has come to be routinely applied to anything involving weathered natural materials, the exhibition features a glossary of terms that crystallise singularly Japanese concepts, such as anbai, meaning “balance” or “adjustment”. Originally it was used to describe the seasoning of food, but here it relates to how the quality of an object hinges on its form and colour. Shibui (literally “bitter”) means subtly elegant, while ibitsusa refers to “irregularity”, which is to be cherished as evidence of the human hand, imparting an expressive quality that cannot (yet) be reproduced by machines.
Short films document some of the craftspeople at work, showing how base materials are effortfully transformed into elegant artefacts. As with the potter’s wheel television intervals of yore, there is a seductively ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) quality to watching how a bowl or spoon is made, but the films also convey a wider sense of the artisans’ lives, their daily routines and their locales, since the nature of place also shapes approaches to design.
Specialising in porcelain, ceramic artists Yamamoto Ryōhei and Hirakura Yuki share a home and studio in Arita, in western Kyushu, where porcelain was first produced in Japan more than 400 years ago. Near their home is the site of the oldest kiln in Arita. Discarded pottery shards are strewn around the ground, yet despite their age, the fragments retain a surprising freshness. The couple began to research and replicate historic pieces, refining their making techniques and gradually developing a style that became their own. “The human eye is always searching for something,” says Ryōhei. “When you’re unsure whether you’re seeing a design or not, your imagination starts working.”
What emerges is how intrinsically and intimately craft is part of human existence, passed down through generations, changing yet somehow unchanged. Programming director Simon Wright quotes a line from the 13th-century Japanese writer Kamo no Chōmei: “The flow of the river never ceases, and yet the water is never the same.”
Hyakkō: 100+ Makers from Japan, Japan House, London, until 10 May
