Mingei, An Art Retreat in Japan, with Monica Dengo
"Pattern is the essence of beauty, form reduced to its primary elements" Soetsu Yanagi
Location: Kaoalpe Kama city, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan
Arrival date: May 17, 2025
Departure date: May 25, 2025
This year 2025 the focus will be the spirituality of Nature through the practice of mark making in every experience we live. We will be located in Kama city, in the Fukuoka prefecture. We will be immersed in the quiet and profound beauty of southern Japan, in the middle of the countryside, surrounded by rice fields and mountains.
The Class
During the whole week we’ll give special attention to the development of patterns in Japanese culture and folk art (Mingei). The event will be an immersion into calligraphic and design culture. Mark making is the ‘materia prima’ of all written communication, in every form and in the infinite relationships between orality and writing, but it is also a primary need that goes beyond logic and enters into a profund experience of our being alive. Students will have the opportunity to make multiple artist’s books in a classroom located within the Kahoalpe premises, open at any time of day and night. At the end of the retreat we will exhibit all our artist’s books at the Kahoalpe’s lobby.
Special Artisan Day
There will be two special artisan’s days: one in Koishiwara, a small pottery village in the mountains where we’ll learn how to make marks on ceramic tiles in Taketoshi Oota pottery studio, and one in Akizuki, another village in the mountains where Mr.Inoue will teach us the process of making washi (Japanese paper) and where we’ll make our own sheets of paper to be used in our artist’s books. Students will also learn how to paste Japanese papers together and on fabric, using traditional Japanese techniques. Furthermore we will make our own Rakkan-in chop : we’ll develop our own symbol (from letters or from ideograms) and we’ll carve it into our own stone chop. In Akizuki we’ll visit an extraordinary Japanese garden at Seryuan.
Maximum number of participants: 16.
Location and accommodation
We will live and work at Kahoalpe, a location in Kama, Fukuoka Prefecture. Here students will have their accommodation in single or double rooms and will have access to a beautiful classroom, open at any time during day and night.
To see some images of the previous Mingei 2023, visit a Album
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