The sixth edition of Made in Japan is out, and she’s gorgeous! This is an annual special issue of the magazine devoted to Japanese craftsmanship, creativity and artistic ingenuity in all forms.
This year, while editing the issue, I was thinking a lot about the meaning of tradition. I wanted to highlight artists who are carrying traditional crafts into the future, as well as those whose work interrogates long-held values and conventional ways of thinking. I also wanted to feature people whose work encourages us to look at the world from a different perspective… perhaps even a cat’s…
Some of my favorite pieces from the issue:
☆ A fascinating deep-dive into Miwa Yanagi’s Elevator Girls, a surreal, cult-classic photo series from the 90s that explores the claustrophobia of feminized labor.
☆ A lengthy, beautifully written profile of the designer Hana Yagi. You might recognize the name from our last newsletter — she recently went viral for designing a kimono-inspired dress for Naomi Osaka. But her work before that is perhaps even more compelling; she’s known for repurposing wedding dresses into hellish, sanguineous creations.
☆ An interview with Mitsuaki Iwago, the mind behind an ingeniously whimsical NHK travel show that takes viewers through Japan, with local cats as the tour guides.
— Callie Beusman, Editorial Director
In every issue of Made in Japan, we interview young artists reimagining ancient arts for the modern time. In this one, we have a profile of Hana Yagi, who slices up and restitches wedding dresses, partially inspired by traditional boro textile techniques; we talk to Sosho Kobori, the inheritor of a 14-generation teahouse legacy who wants to make the tea ceremony more accessible to the average person; and we spotlight Go For Kogei, an ambitious new project focused on the future of craftsmanship.
Each of these practices is distinctly Japanese, “steeped in tradition,” as a guidebook might say, and also strikingly modern in sensibility.
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Features
How Miwa Yanagi's retro-futuristic photo series became one of postwar Japan's most haunting bodies of work — and what it has to say, decades later.
Hana Yagi transforms damaged or discarded wedding dresses into striking garments that challenge ideas of purity, femininity and tradition.
Wildlife photographer Mitsuaki Iwago shares the story behind A Cat's-Eye View of Japan, his beloved NHK travel series where cats take viewers all throughout the country.
Other Highlights From the Issue
Jazz Haus Posy is one of Shimokitazawa's most charming jazz bars — a 50-year-old institution lovingly run by a mother and daughter.
Go for Kogei, a Kanazawa-based art project modernizing heritage crafts, brings 10 Japanese artists to Venice for its most ambitious exhibition yet.
How tea master Sosho Kobori brings the grit of elite lacrosse to a 440-year-old tea legacy.