2pm−3pm
Online Talk Session
Timeless Collaboration: Design/Craft/Contemporary Art
- Speakers: Akimoto Yuji, Hosoo Masataka, Tsutsumi Takuya, Yamashita Yukako
Kyoto, where traditional culture still strongly remains, is a city where the past and present blend in nearly every situation. As traditional arts, crafts, products, and contemporary art coexist, collaborations between fields are materializing in recent years. Examining collaborations across disciplines are Akimoto Yuji, Professor Emeritus, Tokyo University of the Arts, Hosoo Masataka, President and CEO of HOSOO and Tsutsumi Takuya from Tsutsumi Asakichi Co., Ltd. and Kyoto Seika University Center for Innovation in Traditional Industries Research Affiliates, together with ACK Program Director Yamashita Yukako.
Speakers:
Akimoto Yuji (Professor Emeritus, Tokyo University of the Arts)
Hosoo Masataka (President and CEO, HOSOO)
Tsutsumi Takuya (Senior Vice President, Tsutsumi Asakichi Co., Ltd./PERSPECTIVE Co-founder/Research Affiliates, Kyoto Seika University Center for Innovation in Traditional Industries/Siita Founder)
Yamashita Yukako (Program Director, ACK)
Speaker’s Profiles
- Akimoto Yuji, Hosoo Masataka, Tsutsumi Takuya, Yamashita Yukako
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Professor Emeritus, Tokyo University of the Arts; Special Director, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa; Distinguished Professor, Tainan National University of the Arts; art critic. Akimoto was born in 1955 in Tokyo. He holds a BA in fine art from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. Beginning in 1991, Akimoto worked on local art projects in Naoshima, Kagawa Prefecture. After serving as the director of the Chichu Art Museum (2004–2006) and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (2007–2016), he taught as a professor at the Tokyo University of the Arts while serving as the director of the University Art Museum (2015–2021). From 2017 through 2023, he acted as the director of Nerima Art Museum.
His past exhibitions include Naoshima Standard One and Naoshima Standard Two (Naoshima, Kagawa Prefecture), the first three iterations of the International Triennale of Kogei in Kanazawa (Kanazawa and Taiwan), Art Crafting Towards the Future (Kanazawa), Japanese Kogei: Future Forward (New York), Yu-ichi Inoue 1916–1985—La calligraphie libérée at Japonismes 2018 (Paris and Albi, France), and Art as It Is: Expressions from the Obscure (Tokyo). Since 2021, he has served as the executive director of the Go for Kogei Hokuriku Crafts Festival. His publications include Aato shiko/Art thinking (Tokyo: Purejidentosha, 2019). -
- Hosoo Masataka
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Masataka Hosoo was born in 1978. After graduating from university and after a brief career as a musician, he entered a well known Japanese jewelry brand. After leaving the company to study for a year in Firenze, Masataka joined Hosoo in 2008. He has been overseeing Hosoo’s new endeavor in developing contemporary textiles since 2009. He is a member of the “GO ON” project, a unit consisting of 6 members, each a representative of a hereditary business in the traditional crafts. In 2014, Masataka was selected as one of “Top 100 Japanese Business Men” by the Nikkei Business Magazine. In 2016, he has been appointed as a member of the Director’s Fellow program hosted by the MIT Media Lab.
Web: HOSOO -
- Tsutsumi Takuya
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Takuya works as the fourth generation of Urushi refiners at Tsutsumi Asakichi Urushi Store, which has refined Urushi over 110years.
As an Urushi refiner experiencing the drop-off in domestic Urushi production, Takuya decided to create “urushi-no-ippo,” an initiative to get the next generation to take an interest in and use Urushi items.
Through innovative collaborations with other creators such as in “Urushi×Surf,Bike,Skateboard,” Takuya has created new opportunities for people to connect with Urushi. In hopes of passing on Urushi, a sustainable natural ingredient that has been used in Japan for more than ten thousand years, to the coming generations, Takuya co-founded Perspective.
Web:
Tsutsumi Asakichi
Forest of Craft
Instagram:
Tsutsumi Asakichi
Siita -
- Yamashita Yukako
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Born in Tokyo in 1988 to a family that runs a tea ceremony utensils business in Kyoto. Completed an MA in Art Business at Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London. After an internship at Sotheby’s London, she joined Sotheby’s Japan, where she oversaw the sales of contemporary art. From 2017 to 2022, she was the managing director of THE CLUB.
She has been a visiting professor at Kyoto University of Arts since 2020. She was appointed Program Director of Art Collaboration Kyoto and Kyoto City Growth Strategy Promotion Advisor in 2022. -
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Talk’s archive
https://youtu.be/iW5NF7gnyJo -