a selection of designs that will be on display during the Kotobuki exhibition
Saido is a Japanese design collective based in Kansai. Made up of roughly 15 members, the team is comprised of product designers, engineers and craftsmen who individually work in a range of fields – electronics, advertising, interior, sportswear and interface design – but also come together to experiment and push each other’s boundaries of design.
Roughly once a year the collective puts on display some of their most creative work. And the tradition is continuing this year as well with an exhibition that will travel from Kyoto to Tokyo.
Things like longevity and marriage are celebratory because they’re long-lasting. “Eternally” is an experimental work by design duo yonanp aimed at understanding how we perceive long-lasting things or ideas without limits.
The theme of their show this year is Kotobuki (寿), a traditional Japanese word of celebration. So each of the designers came up with a celebratory work.
“Kotobuki” will start out in Kyoto in mid-October and will then travel to Tokyo where it will be on display in late October and one day in November.
○Exhibition in Kyoto
Dates: October 13 – October 18, 2015
Time: 12:00pm – 8:00pm (closes at 7:00pm on 10/17 and 10/18)
Location: Media Shop Gallery (Gmap)
○Exhibition in Tokyo
Dates: October 31 – November 1, 2015
Time: 12:00pm – 6:30pm
Location: Sakura Gallery Nakameguro (Gmap)
Flowers and good cuisine are often associated with celebrations in our culture. But what if the 2 were combined? In “The Flower of Gastronomy,” Keita Akiyama imagines a series of edible plants impeccably arranged on a plate.
“Happy Dowser Bird” is a creation by Nobuhito Aono. The unassumingly high-tech birdie sifts through twitter and identifies happy tweets. It then geo-locates the position of where the tweet originated and points in that direction.
A thoughtful set of glasses created with a dome on the base. The idea is that they can be used during celebratory dinner parties or weddings to heighten the mood by placing seasonal decorative ornaments or notes inside.
There are traditional celebratory animal forms in Japan that are often incorporated into molds for snacks and sweets. However, consumers are rarely exposed to the beautifully hand-carved molds that give birth to the sweets. “Form:mold of celebration” by Keita Akiyama and Ryoichi Ishigami is a combination of the two.
