Japanese handwork, into daily life worldwide.
Handwork, food, art and the wisdom of daily life, carried down over generations. Their value does not rest in the finished form alone. Behind each one lies a way of facing nature, a care for others, a sensitivity to the seasons — and we carry that intent with them, out into the world.
ABOUT US
About Us
We look again at the value of the culture alive across Japan and carry it into the world through three channels: learning, objects and experience. Rather than simply preserving it, we build the means for culture to be used in daily life today and handed to the next generation.
There is culture that loses its makers while its excellence goes unexplained. At the same time, people all over the world are drawn to Japanese handwork and aesthetics. Bringing those two together, reliably, is our role.
THE CYCLE
The Cycle We Aim For
Learning drives purchase, purchase sustains regions, and the life of those regions creates new things to learn. An unbroken loop is the surest way to carry culture forward.
ACTIVITIES
Activities
Learn, deliver, experience, support. Four linked programmes that build a lasting relationship between Japanese culture and the world.
Gift wrapping, calligraphy, mizuhiki cords, furoshiki, origata, Japanese colours and the culture of the seasons. A global learning community that goes past technique to the thinking and aesthetics behind each practice — and that you can put to use in your own life the same day.
An e-commerce programme delivering crafts, food, everyday tools and artworks from across Japan, together with the character of their region and the story of their maker. We are building a route in which the act of buying sustains both the culture and the region's tomorrow.
Not a tour of famous sights, but a journey to meet the people who live there. In Ehime, Kyoto and elsewhere in Japan, small groups follow handwork, food, history and nature slowly. Some things only reach you when you give one place enough time.
We support the sale of crafts of every kind, and the step across borders that follows: pricing, packaging, export procedures, regulatory compliance and opening new channels. So that makers can concentrate on making, we take on the road between the workshop and the customer.
MESSAGE
Message
Not to guard Japanese culture as something of the past,
but to carry it forward as culture that keeps living in people's days around the world.
Skills refined over a very long time are quietly being lost. The quality of an object may come across, but the thinking behind it rarely does. Much of why makers are dwindling and producing regions are thinning out lies, we believe, in exactly that gap.
And yet there are people around the world who look at Japanese handwork with real seriousness. Each of those encounters becomes culture's next step. We will take our time building a cycle that ties people to people and regions to the world, so that both grow richer.
MEMBER
Members
Founded the organization after years of work in Japanese culture, handwork and education. Builds the means of communication from the side of the people who carry the culture.
An instructor specialising in gift wrapping and Japanese culture. Designs the curriculum and runs the classes at TSUMUGU.
Started his first company at 17 and founded a marketing firm at 19. Delivered web projects for Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and Fukuoka Prefecture, and served as a marketing supervisor for the ANA Group. Public-sector work promoting traditional crafts introduced him to the depth of Japanese handwork; he now leads sales and cross-border support here.
ORGANIZATION
Organization
NEWS
News
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COLUMN
Column
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We welcome partnerships with companies, local governments, artisans, artists, schools and cultural organizations working on international communication and cultural continuity. A small question is a fine place to start.