Tokujin Yoshioka's latest project "Snow"

Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka is presenting his latest work "Snow" at the “Sensing Nature” exhibit at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo. The show is on display until early November.

“Snow” is a 50’ wide tank with hundreds of pounds of feathers flying around. The idea evolved from a smaller exhibit Tokujin did in 1997 for Issey Miyake with similar materials. Here is some information from Tokujin about his installation:

“In recent years, I have been studying the essence that human beings would sense. It is neither arranging nor minimizing the forms, but integrating the phenomena and the low of the nature into the design, and see how it would affect and inspire ourselves. Because I believe there is a hint for the future somewhere in-between the essence of the design and the nature, I would like to pursue designing works with this aspect. The Snow is a 15-meter-wide dynamic installation. Seeing the hundreds kilograms of light feather blown all over and falling down slowly, the memory of the snowscape would lie within people’s heart would be bubbled up. This work would show unimaginable beauty by capturing the irregular movement of the nature. This is designed after the installation in 1997 that expressed the “snow” by the concept of the color “white”. The material is feather, which I believe is the lightest material of the present day. The snowscape created with the feather would be more like the memory of snow lying with people rather than the actual snow. The theme of the exhibition is to rethink the Japanese perception of nature, which is to question how the unconscious power to sense the nature and the value of nature in Japan would affect the contemporary art and design. I do not really know about the value of nature in Japan, but what I would like to do is not to reproduce the nature but to know how human senses function when experiencing nature. The most beautiful things I believe in this world is what is irreproducible, accidentally born, and disorder that cannot be understood by the theory. I believe the nature is the ultimate beauty in this world. The sunlight, soft breeze, and the harmony that leaves create, the variety of the essence in the nature touches our emotions. I intend not to reproduce them, but to pick the element that inspires our heart and integrate it into the design.”

 

Photos & Interview via Dezeen