Intertradition, a craft exchange project between Japan and Sweden by Lisa Juntunen Roos and Shogo Hirata, in collaboration with the traditional Kurume Kasuri weaving mil Shimogawa Orimono.
In this project, we aim to find new ways of working with textile craft by combining two countries’ craft cultures into one. By filtering Swedish weaving and pattern traditions through a traditional Japanese weaving technique we create an intertraditional fabric; a piece of fabric that doesn’ t belong in any of the two cultures more or less and therefore can be interesting, traditional and alluring for both countries at the same time.
The design of the fabric is based on classic Scandinavian weaving techniques such as MUNKABÄLTE, DALDRÄLL, RÖLAKAN, ROSENGÅNG and DUKAGÅNG. The fabric is woven in the traditional Japanese technique Kasuri, commonly known as Ikat, where the yarn is dyed using a resist-dying technique which creates a certain type of pattern when weaving.
Kyozo Shimogawa runs the small weaving mill Shimogawa Orimono where we worked together to create our fabric. He is a third generation weaving master in the specific Kurume-Kasuri craft tradition and our collaboration with him and the weaving mill has been crucial to making this project a reality. Our wish is to create opportunities and platforms for textile crafts and by highlighting traditional craft and explore new ways to work with it we hope to fulfill that.
Our final exhibition of this project took a place at the local craft store / gallery Unagi no nedoko in Yame Fukuoka, which is located near by the weaving mill. We showcased the phase.2 of the project where we created individual artworks with inspirations from our journey to learn the Kurume Kasuri textile making process. The textile pieces on the board are Lisa’s artworks.
