The painter Naoki Tomita uses thick layers of oil paint to depict suburban scenes of Japan: the facades of stores, high-rise buildings or a parking lot, devoid of anything but vending machines. For an upcoming solo exhibition, Tomita has focused on Tokyo as his prime subject, ahead of 2020.
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Mt. Fuji Architects is named after Japan’s tallest peak. The architecture firm’s founder, Masahiro Harada, grew up in Shizuoka which is also home to the famous mountain. Back in 2016 when Harada was asked to come up with a plan to renovate a Nichiren Buddhist temple and cemetery in Tokyo that dates back to the early edo-period, he recalled the words of his grandmother: “don’t step on that stone; it could be a grave.”
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Manabu Endo creates dignified portraits of his subjects using a watercolor background and detailed ballpoint pen illustrations. The dreamy animals, plants and occasionally humans are reminiscent of picture scrolls and evoke a strong narrative.
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Twenty seven-year old Miyu Kojima (previously) works for a company that cleans up after kodokushi (孤独死) or lonely deaths: a Japanese phenomenon of people dying alone and remaining undiscovered for a long period of time. The instances first began to be reported around 2000, and are thought to be a product of increased social isolation coupled with a greying population.
Part art therapy and part public service campaign, Kojima spends a large portion of her free time creating detailed, miniature replicas of the rooms she has cleaned. Last month she released her first book, a series of essays that accompany the replica rooms she has created in the past.
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Musashino Magazine (Fall 2021)
For the past several years, Ryo Takemasa, the illustrator behind the Birds of Tokyo handbook, has been illustrating the cover of the quarterly magazine Musashino. The eponymous magazine is dedicated to Musashino, a Western suburb of Tokyo along the Chuo line. Since today (September 23) is the Autumn equinox and the official beginning of Fall, we’re sharing the Autumn covers that Takemasa illustrated for the magazine.
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Japanese artist Atsuko Yukawa runs a small studio called Trill where she primarily spends her time illustrating birds. But recently, in her spare time, she’s been experimenting with simple wire sculptures. At first sight they don’t seem like much, but that’s because they’ve been designed for a very specific purpose: to be carefully balanced on a battery.
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The prolonged electricity outages that are occurring in Chiba, Japan thanks to Typhoon Faxai have renewed an age-old debate: whether or not to bury Japan’s utility poles and electric wires underground.
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Along one of Ginza’s many backstreets, just steps from Showa-dori, sat an L-shaped plot of land. At just 2.7-meters wide, or a little less than 9 ft, it had remained vacant for the past 3 years, obscured by the shadows of the towering grey buildings around it. Until finally a developer stepped in.
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Quruli are a 3-piece Japanese rock band that have been making music for over 2 decades. The band’s original members – Kishida and Sato – met in university and formed in 1996. If you attend Fuji Rock, the annual music festival held in Naeba Ski Resort, you’ll surely recognize them as they’ve been a mainstay since 1999.
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Established in 1940, Nishiri is a Kyoto-based company carrying on a local legacy of pickled and fermented vegetables. But 2 years ago, when they decided they needed a rebrand, they turned to design agency Nosigner, who helped them modernize their “Hakko Seikatsu” (meaning fermentation lifestyle) brand of sauces, soups and dressing.
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