TOUCH WOOD 2 is an exhibition by Yuma Kano, based in Tokyo, Japan, and Sho Ota, based in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Approximately two and a half years after their two-person exhibition “TOUCH WOOD” held at ALCOVA during Milan Design Week 2023, the two designers—each continuing to engage deeply with wood as a material—reunite to present this sequel exhibition in collaboration with Karimoku Furniture.

In this exhibition, the artists turn their attention to the inherent appeal of wood itself, the small discoveries that emerge through the act of making, and the technical constraints and challenges that surface in the process of production. By bringing together their practice—pursuing expressions that cannot be fully captured through mass production—and Karimoku Furniture’s advanced manufacturing expertise under its “High-Tech & High-Touch” philosophy, the exhibition explores new possibilities in design. Through a dialogue among the three parties, their respective methods and techniques intersect and merge, giving rise to new products that do not begin with predefined functions or uses, but instead seek to redefine relationships between wood and people, objects and daily life, and processing and perception.

The exhibition presents not only finished works but also the process of making as an integral part of the display. Within a studio space installed in the gallery, visitors can witness the designers thinking, working with their hands, and shaping ideas into form. We invite you to experience the atmosphere of creation and the energy of craftsmanship as the works come into being.

The exhibition title “TOUCH WOOD” originates from the cultural belief that spirits reside in trees, and from the widely used Western expression meaning “to touch wood for good luck,” in order to ward off misfortune. As a phrase that symbolizes the designers’ practice of reading the expressions of wood and creating works through hands-on processes, it has been adopted as the title of this exhibition.

-Statement-
When I first visited the Karimoku Furniture factory, I was deeply impressed—before even entering the building—by the beautifully maintained trees on the premises. I realized then that these trees, too, are precious “wood” to Karimoku. Once inside the factory, I encountered a wide variety of wood carefully stored, and witnessed the process through which it is transformed from “tree” into “timber,” and eventually into “furniture.”
For this exhibition, I asked myself what kind of new approach I could take toward wood as a universal material.
Through the process of creating my original material, ForestBank, I have engaged with countless branches. Their shapes, thicknesses, curves, textures, and surface patterns—I have continued to observe them almost unconsciously. Whenever I found a branch I particularly liked, I would quietly collect it, without any specific purpose. By combining these experiences and sensibilities with Karimoku Furniture’s advanced manufacturing technology, I set out to explore the question: What can be created from a single branch? I turned my attention to the “tree” before it becomes “timber,” and further back to the “branch” before it becomes a tree as material. Through forms that seem both functional and non-functional—shifting between furniture and object—I aim to reveal new possibilities and new expressions that emerge when I, at this moment in time, engage with wood as a universal material.
The feeling I experienced during my first visit to the factory has led directly to this body of work.
　
Yuma Kano
　
　
-Statement-
In preparing for this exhibition, I found myself seriously confronting the questions: What am I capable of? and What should I be doing? The works presented here are my current response to those questions.
Collaborating with Karimoku Furniture provided a wonderful opportunity. With their advanced technology and facilities—capable of producing almost anything—I was able to realize forms that I had previously only imagined but never been able to create. These works crystallize the various ideas of “coolness” I have discovered throughout my independent practice.
At the same time, this exciting opportunity also prompted me to reconsider the nature of my own autonomous production. If nearly any form I can conceive can be realized at Karimoku, then why do I still make things myself? Why do I feel compelled to create? After much struggle, I arrived at a self-built cutting system modeled after a CNC machine. I fixed a grinder fitted with a woodworking cutter in one place and manually rotated a piece of wood mounted on a turntable. The precision is low, and I must repeatedly fine-tune the grinder’s position dozens of times. It is nothing like a CNC machine that completes the task at the push of a button. Yet this system allows me to think while making, and to make while thinking. The autonomy remains on my side. In working this way, I feel I have managed to protect the very reason I continue to create.

Sho Ota
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