Re: New Tohoku showcases the very best products from the area of Japan hit by the 2011 tsunami. Tohoku is home to an outstanding creative manufacturing community that is recovering, thriving and forging partnerships with overseas businesses.
The Japanese are arguably the ‘Scandinavia of Asia’ when it comes to modern design, with an emphasis on innovative products, cleanly designed and beautifully finished with an almost obsessive-compulsive drive for perfection. Tohoku is particularly renowned for its expert craftsmanship.
Re: New Tohoku takes place at Asia House for five days. Highlights include Yukiko Takahashi’s calligraphy watches, where numerals have been replaced with poetry or seasons in kanji (Chinese characters used in Japanese writing) and Bitowa Lacquerware from Aizu-Wakamatsu city, Fukushima. Then there are the awesome ‘broadbean’ Picnic Seats from Iwate. What, you might ask, makes these better than your awkward tourist deckchair, a plastic mat or your flatmate’s suspiciously stained beanbag? A compartment to store your buttery, lovely quintessentially British sandwiches, that’s what.
Items on display will be available for purchase, which is quite handy as we want one of those seats on the off-chance that summer finally gets here.
Re: New Tohoku: a Tradition of Perfection Brought to Life for You, runs 11-15 July, Asia House.
