Balloon as vase by Shun Kawakami

I hope everyone in the US had a Happy Thanksgiving and everyone everywhere else had a Happy Thursday! I was saving this post because it seemed festive and I kept thinking how awesome it would be to welcome guests into a home adorned with flower vases like these.

So, last month art director Shun Kawakami embarked on a bold collaborative project, balloon as vase, to create these fascinating vases that you might see if Jeff Koons hosted a Zen tea ceremony.

I actually considered cropping the vases to optimize them for viewing but decided to preserve the originals because they are really so beautiful in their long and narrow orientation, reminiscent of Chinese scrolls. So please click to enlarge!

Photos by Yuu Kawakami

The vases were originally created for “composition of knowledge and feeling,” an exhibition by Shun Kawakami and Takashi Kawada that was shown at JAGDA TOKYO last month. Other collaborators include balloon artist Rie Hosokai aka Daisy Balloon and calligraphy artist Gen Miyamura, both artists in their own right, and whose standalone work I have shown below.

Flame (2008) by calligraphy artist Gen Miyamura, who creates works in highly deconstructed forms of calligraphy. One may even go as far as calling it abstract. In the past Miyamura has done CD jacket designs, movie posters, and even commercial work for Bridgestone and Docomo.

A dress by balloon artist Rie Hosokai, who started balloon art in 2002 and went on to reign supreme in almost every balloon folding exhibition she entered. The icing on the cake was her 2 consecutive wins in Millenium Jam with her haute couture dresses made from balloons.

Related:

• Prints by Shun Kawakami
• Issey Miyake packaging boxes by Shun Kawakami