The Victoria and Albert Museum was built the year after the first London Great Exhibition in 1851. Artworks made with traditional craftsmanship from Tohoku will be exhibited here for one month from September 2024. The creator of this project is Hideki Yoshimoto, a designer and founder of the design studio Tangent.

He has worked with the world's top brands, including directing the light show for the world's tallest tower in Dubai, exhibiting a booth for Hermes at the Geneva Salon, and designing suitcases for the British brand Globetrotter. At the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo, he will be the general director of the Wakayama Zone of the Kansai Pavilion, "One Hundred Views of Wakayama - Land of Spirituality," but his current interest is sparking innovation in the world of traditional crafts. We asked him what he really means.

A shocking encounter with traditional crafts

Hideki Yoshimoto, who also holds the title of Specially Appointed Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo's Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, says, "I would like to set up a course to teach crafts at the University of Tokyo." However, it seems that he has only recently become interested in crafts. "In the past, when I thought of crafts, I only had the image of things sold at the event halls on the upper floors of department stores, like New Year's bento sets or miso soup bowls," he says frankly.

The turning point for him was a visit to the Kawauchi lacquerware workshop in Akita. His first visit to a traditional craft workshop completely changed his perspective. Coincidentally, he had been asked by the Lexus Design Award, for which he had also won the Grand Prix at the first competition, to design a trophy, and was searching for materials and specifications for it.

"Until then, traditional crafts were seen as something that the country had to protect, to preserve our precious traditional crafts, and there was no image of it being a new challenge," says Yoshimoto.

However, at the workshop, "the craftsmen divide up the work and work stoically, devoting themselves to their own crafts. For example, the lacquerers have been lacquering bowls for a long time. They have been doing this for 800 years. To me, this was noble, like a monk chanting sutras every day. There is a creative exchange there, and as a creator, I found that simply cool," and he thought, "I would like to work with them and do something."

Thus, Yoshimoto designed a trophy using sandalwood, a wood that changes color over time. "With sandalwood, silver foil is applied to the base of the wood, and then a layer of transparent lacquer (uncolored lacquer that retains the color of the sap) is applied on top of that. The lacquer reacts with ultraviolet light and the brown color fades, so the lacquer layer gradually becomes more transparent and the shine of the foil becomes more prominent, making the trophy appear orange or gold. As the winner achieves success, the trophy also becomes more radiant. I thought this was in keeping with the idea of ​​the award being given at the starting point of success," he said of the design's intentions.

From aspiring pilot to the intersection of engineering and art

Although his encounter with crafts is relatively recent, Yoshimoto's quest for craftsmanship began with his childhood admiration for the sky. Born and raised in Wakayama, he had a vague dream of becoming a pilot, but gave up due to eyesight problems. After entering the University of Tokyo, he went on to study aerospace engineering.

"Aerospace engineering is a very complex field that encompasses materials, fluid dynamics, control, software, and more. Many of the people around me were doing research on building artificial satellites and rockets, but I was more interested in 'using' airplanes than 'building' them," says Yoshimoto.

As a student who played music, he was interested in the use of aircraft in entertainment, and in an era when drones were not yet commonplace, he built a radio-controlled airship equipped with LEDs and researched a performance in which the light was controlled to match the music at a concert venue. This research was also academically recognized, winning the top prize at the Japan Society for Artificial Intelligence.

Through his research, he developed a strong desire to use his engineering knowledge in creative endeavors, and decided to go on to a doctoral program. He was accepted by several overseas graduate schools, including Carnegie Mellon University, but decided to take a big leap instead, and chose to go to the Royal College of Art (RCA), the world's top art and design university.

At RCA, he struggled with the differences between his engineering way of thinking and the culture of an art school: "In engineering school, you first set a goal and then plan the path to get there. But at RCA, we were told that 'the moment you set a goal, you limit the possibilities.' Research is like setting foot on the savannah, exploring without knowing where the treasure is, and aiming to make unexpected discoveries. I was confused at first, but I learned that really interesting discoveries come from that process."

In his doctoral thesis, Yoshimoto explored the design possibilities of primitive repetitive motion, with the theme of "pulse and rhythm." Although he is not good at drawing, he found a field where he could utilize his engineering skills, especially software and interaction. This led him to compete in the first Lexus Design Award in 2013. Yoshimoto won the grand prize with his lighting design "Inaho," which attracted international attention, and in 2015 he founded his own design studio, "Tangent," in London.

After winning the Grand Prix, Yoshimoto was recognized worldwide for his work on the lighting of the Burj Khalifa tower, the tallest building in the world, at Dubai Design Week (2016), and glass sculptures "Rise" and "Drift" (2017) with the Venetian lighting brand WonderGlass. He also worked on window displays for Hermès in London (2018) and the globe installation "Here" for the Geneva watch exhibition (2019), and has been active on the international stage.

The works are characterized by their use of technology but in a way that makes it invisible, and by their clever incorporation of elements such as light, movement, and interaction.

This series of activities culminated in a large-scale solo exhibition held in collaboration with Lexus during the London Design Festival in 2019. The diverse experiences and achievements gained during this period became an important foundation for him to later shift his focus to "Craft x Tech," which combines traditional crafts with technology.

Establishing an "Advanced Crafts Research Department" at the University of Tokyo

The year 2020 was a turning point for Yoshimoto. Around the time he completed his trophy using Kawauchi lacquerware techniques and began to show a serious interest in crafts, he also met Ryohei Kanzaki (now Professor Emeritus), who was then director of the University of Tokyo's Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST).

"Professor Kanzaki wanted to create an art and design lab at RCAST, a place where researchers from a variety of fields come together to conduct interdisciplinary research. With an increasing number of social issues that cannot be solved by logical thinking alone, he wanted to incorporate art and design thinking. It just so happened that I had a doctorate in design, and my work up to that point was highly regarded, so he welcomed me on as a specially appointed associate professor."

Yoshimoto is hoping to set up a "Advanced Crafts Research Department (tentative title)" at the University of Tokyo. "I'd like to launch it as early as this fall, and no later than April of next year," he says enthusiastically.

"If we are to do this at the University of Tokyo, we want to go beyond simply creating works, exhibiting and selling them, and broaden our activities to include research and development, education and human resource exchanges."

Rather than viewing traditional crafts statically as "cultural heritage to be preserved," he wants to view them dynamically as living technologies that are constantly evolving, and he believes that in order to do so, exchanges between people with diverse backgrounds are essential.

"I think it's important to take a multifaceted approach, for example by having law students explore the relationship with crafts from a legal perspective."

RCAST has students with a wide range of specialties, including nanotechnology, biology, AI, and quantum computing. Yoshimoto believes that combining these with crafts will create new possibilities. In fact, Yoshimoto himself has worked on a project that combined crafts with cutting-edge technology.

Through a collaboration between RCAST and Ishikawa Prefecture, he became involved in a project to explore new possibilities for gold leaf, and began exploring new ways of expressing gold leaf with Kanazawa gold leaf manufacturer "Hakuichi." One of the pieces created in this way was dedicated as an art piece to the tokonoma alcove of the newly built special room "Gachirin" at the historic temple lodging "Ekoin" on Mount Koya. Although the room costs over 1 yen per night, the mysterious spatial presentation has earned it a reputation as a popular spot that is constantly booked, and it has been frequently featured on television and other media.

The collaborative research with "Hakuichi" continued after that. The next goal was a work that pursued the "aesthetics of transmitted light." "Gold leaf is usually valued for the beauty of the reflected light. However, I wanted to think about the 'aesthetics of light' from a different angle. What kind of beauty would be created if there was a light source on the other side of the gold leaf?" With this idea in mind, research began to explore the expression of light that penetrates the foil. A solo exhibition was held in Shibuya in 1 for the work "DAWN," which was made from extremely thin gold leaf of 1/2023 mm, with millions of tiny holes drilled with a picosecond laser and a light source installed inside the frame to express the light of dawn.

From this initiative, Yoshimoto began to conceive a concept project called "Craft x Tech."

Craft x Tech: The fusion of traditional crafts and technology

"Craft x Tech" is an activity that aims to open up new value, expression, and future possibilities by combining the materials, techniques, and spirituality of traditional Japanese crafts with modern technology and design thinking. Yoshimoto, who found creativity in the advanced handiwork of the craftsmen he witnessed in the workshop and the process itself that had been handed down for many years, thought that by bringing in an outside perspective and techniques from different fields, he could create innovation that would break down stereotypes.

There, six craft production areas in Tohoku, namely Kawatsura lacquerware (Akita Prefecture), Sendai chests (Miyagi Prefecture), Tsugaru lacquerware (Aomori Prefecture), Okitama tsumugi (Yamagata Prefecture), Nanbu ironware (Iwate Prefecture), and Aizuhongo ware (Fukushima Prefecture), were combined with six creators from Japan and abroad, including Yoshimoto himself, such as Yoichi Ochiai and Sabine Marcelis, to create art works that utilize their respective skills. After an exhibition at Kudan House in Tokyo, the completed works will be exhibited at the Victoria & Albert Museum in June 2024, participating in Design Miami in Basel in Switzerland, and in September in the London Design Festival in the UK.

In 2025, Yoshimoto will announce the second installment of "Craft x Tech." This time, works will be created by six artists, including contemporary artist Hiroto Samukawa of EUGENE STUDIO, who recently held a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, and six other artists from six Tokai region production areas: Fudogama of Mino ware (Gifu Prefecture), Warabi Paper Company of Mino washi paper (Gifu Prefecture), Suzusan of Arimatsu and Narumi tie-dye (Aichi Prefecture), Ando Shippo-ten of Owari cloisonné (Aichi Prefecture), Shingama of Seto sometsuke ware (Aichi Prefecture), and Itogo of Iga kumihimo (Mie Prefecture).

Wakayama and the future

His ties with his hometown, Wakayama, are also deepening.

He joined the advisory group for the Governor of Kayama Prefecture, Shu Kishimoto, and was appointed leader in charge of culture and the arts. In 2023, he was selected as a participating artist for Koyasan Art Days, planned to commemorate the 1250th anniversary of the birth of Kobo Daishi, and had the historic opportunity to exhibit his work in the courtyard of Kongobu-ji Temple for the first time in Koyasan.

At the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo, he was entrusted with the unusual trust of the Wakayama Prefecture Governor, who said, "I'll leave everything to you," and he took on the role of general director of the Wakayama Zone. The theme is "One Hundred Views of Wakayama - Land of Spirituality." Wakayama's deep spiritual culture, represented by Kumano and Koyasan, and its "spirit of tolerance" will be conveyed to the world through modern design. In the center of the space, eight 4m-tall "totems" made of Kishu lacquerware will be placed, and in collaboration with video artist Yusuke Murakami and pastry chef Mineko Kato, Murakami will work together to create a space where the exhibits change dynamically, utilizing local materials and crafts such as Kishu wood and Koya Kumiko crafts, in order to deliver surprises and excitement that exceed global expectations.

Many creators aim to go global after making a name for themselves in Japan, but Yoshimoto did the opposite, first making a name for himself abroad and then returning to Japan with the knowledge and experience he gained. From the very beginning, "Craft x Tech" involved famous overseas creators, and the international perspective and strategy that assumes exhibiting at popular overseas events is likely something he learned from top overseas brands. These are all perspectives that traditional crafts have struggled with up until now, which is why expectations are high for the changes and innovations Yoshimoto will bring in the future.