An exchange of design ideas and technical proposals began. Art was created by Dutch-based artist Fleur van Dodewaard and Nihonbashi Hamacho-based mounting artist “Kyoshindo Inazaki”. While they were afraid to travel to Japan and could only communicate via e-mail and online meetings, their mutual challenges gradually took shape.
The products that TOKYO CRAFT ROOM has worked on so far have been functional items, but I work in the realm of art, where I try to create things that have no practical use, so to speak. I take a different approach to each theme, and it’s interesting to see what form it can take,” says Dodewaard.
Photography, sculpture, and painting are the three elements that form the core of Dodewaard’s work. With this as a base, she delved deeper and deeper into unknown worlds for this project, such as old paintings and Japanese stylistic beauty. She also deepened her research on the empathy for the handiwork of “Kyoshindo Inazaki,” and her work was solidified.

She then proposed to take a photograph of nine painted wooden sticks of different sizes, one by one, and join them together, one by one, printed on Japanese paper. The image resembles a horizontal hanging scroll, but its length is as long as 4.5 meters.
The Hyogu is characterized by flat expressions related to paper, which is also related to my own photographic sculptures. So I decided to install a flat sculpture like a scroll, a long, horizontal piece of art, on the wall.
The colorful wooden sticks in the photographs are all different types and sizes, having been collected over the years from various places, including her father’s old workshop and trash cans on the street. Using everyday objects and breathing new life into them is an approach that Dodewaard has continued to follow.

As the plan for the work was being finalized, a dialogue with Inazaki continued as to how the techniques of tableware could be utilized here.
“Following the initial concept of dividing the work into nine parts and connecting them into one piece, I wondered how to join the 4.5-meter-long work together and how to install it in the TOKYO CRAFT ROOKM. I went back and forth, taking into consideration the fact that it was a guest room and had to be installed safely. At first, I suggested that the best way to display the panels would be to put paper on them. However, we also came up with the amazing idea of making it something that could actually be rolled up. So we continued to catch up with her in conversation and came to a final plan,” says Inazaki.

They arrived at a plan to exhibit nine prints that Dodewaard had made in Netherland, stitched together into a single print, and reinforced with a piece of wood placed between the prints. The presence of this piece of wood was also a final deciding factor in the completion of the work. Initially, the plan was to affix the wood to the back of the prints solely as a brace, but in the end it was decided to bring it to the forefront. Dodewaard recalls that decision.

“When creating a work, improvisation is very important, so we would normally see and touch the tools and materials in the studio and create the work through trial and error, but that was not possible this time. I really felt the difficulty of communication. In product design, decisions are made through more precise calculations, but in the case of my art, it is more of an instinctive reflection. That is why this piece of wood, which is usually kept in the back, was a major turning point for me when I brought it out into the open. It was as if the pieces fit together, matching Inazaki’s craftsmanship and my design. The piece was finally complete.”
The production process this time seemed to make us realize the value of art and how to deal with it, despite the constraints of time and distance. In an unfamiliar environment, the more we talked with each other with materials such as photos, videos, and texts, the more our inspiration for the work grew, which was also a valuable experience.
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Fleur van Dodewaard
フラー・ファン・ドーデワード
FLEUR VAN DODEWAARD (1983, The Netherlands) is a visual artist based in Amsterdam. Van Dodewaard operates within a triangle of photography, sculpture and painting. Through the exploration of these media she finds new ways of working with art-historical forms and there by challenges the ‘art object’ and the way we look at things.Van Dodewaard studied THEATRE at the University of Amsterdam and FINE ARTS at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, before enrolling in the PHOTOGRAPHY department at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where she graduated in 2010. Her work has been shown in exhibitions all over the world; from Japan to Russia, Australia, United States and all over Europe. At the moment she receives an Established Artist Stipend from Mondriaan Fund, The Netherlands.
Kyoshindo Inazaki
経新堂稲崎
Kyoshindo Inazaki is a traditional Japanese “Hyogu” company which has been established in Nihonbashi for about 180 years. “Hyogu” refers to shoji screens, fusuma doors, picture books, impulse screens, folding screens, pasted walls, hanging scrolls, scrolls and frames made of cloth or paper. The process of making them is called ‘hyosou’.And they also specialise in the conservation and restoration of old works of art and craft.