ATELIER MUJI GINZA Gallery 1 is starting “The Chestnut Tree Project” in collaboration with MASHIKO Product.

It is a project born of a dialog with the master of Italian design Enzo Mari (1932 – ).We are holding an exhibition and an event with the aim to “bring fruitful results to future generations as if planting a chestnut tree rather than prioritizing the economy in the immediate future.”

The theme of this third exhibition is “To think.”

It all started from a series of tableware called SAMOS that Mari produced with artisans in the 1970s at a porcelain studio for Danese Milano. The method was neither craft-like handwork by an artist nor an industrial product, but rather a manner of handwork for producing quality through equal dialogs between the artisan and the designer. We gained ideas from this philosophy and conducted experiments at our unique workshops.

Our workshops were conducted for six days by a total of eleven members including local
potters and a team of designers formed by ATELIER MUJI GINZA Gallery1, in the production areas of Mashiko -yaki (Mashiko ware)—cherished by people mainly around the Kanto Region as tableware for daily use—as the stage. This exhibition features over approximately 150 prototypes and tools that narrate the process as well as the two pieces of SAMOS all in a single venue.

This exhibition is a launching event for a long-term project towards a new tradition in Mashiko, and we plan to continue the workshops in the future and advance the methods. We started by giving thought to Mari’s words “Many artisans use their hands automatically and hand down ‘tradition’ from the past to future without thinking,” and will explore new methods and forms while using our own hands.

Why not join us in thinking about the future of handicrafts and tradition?

ATELIER MUJI GINZA