Yuma Kano based in Japan/Tokyo and Sho Ota based in Netherlands/Eindhoven are presenting their exhibition, ‘TOUCH WOOD’ .
Yuma’s research on the issues and possibilities related to forests and forestry pays attention not only to the lumber processed from them but also to the diverse values of the forests themselves. From this research he has developed a new material ‘ForestBank’ , made by binding twigs, branches and leaves with a 100% water-based acrylic resin that does not use any reactive mineral bases or volatile organic solvents. In doing so, he gives value to valueless forest materials.
Sho’s 'Surfaced' project is an attempt to create furniture in a sculptural way. Unlike mass-production furniture making which is finished in parts and then assembled, it is assembled as a whole first and then the details are carved out. The advantage of this method is that the material can be used until the last piece of wood, while the disadvantage is that it takes more time. Collecting wood from various factories and workshops that were scheduled to be discarded, the project creates works from the material. As a result, furniture pieces are one-of-a-kind, repurposing wood with significant care.
The common design technique of the two as designers working with the material “wood” is “collecting and cutting wood.” At this exhibition, they pursue expressions that cannot be achieved with mass production. They present their new works in which their respective expression methods are mixed together as if they were dialoguing.