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Exhibition Contents
This exhibition looks at ramen bowls from a design standpoint. It focuses on the constituent elements, and is divided into focusing on the sections: "Ramen Past and the Present," "Design Anatomy of Ramen and Ramen Bowls," "Artist Ramen Bowls," and "Production Centers of Mino Ware."
Ramen Past and the Present
⚫︎Curated by Mari Hashimoto, exhibition director, and Kensaku Kato, a graphic designer, this section outlines the history and present state of ramen. It exhibits a sound installation by video director Tokuro Oka, capturing the environment of a ramen shop.
Design Anatomy of Ramen and Ramen Bowls
⚫︎Taku Satoh employs his Design Anatomy method to analyze ramen and ramen bowls from various standpoints. Attention is given to ramen terminology, appearance, fragrance and temperature, also the color, pattern, shape and texture of ramen bowls.
Artist Ramen Bowls
⚫︎40 sets of ramen bowls and spoons are shown. 10 have been created specially for this exhibition. Sets are by 40 separate artists, designers, architects, illustrators and culinary researchers. The 10 new sets are by Naoto Fukasawa, director of 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT, Shigesato Itoi, Shun Sasaki, Katsuhiko Shibuya, Yui Takada, Naoto Takenaka, Mina Tabei, Yuko Higuchi, Morihiro Hosokawa and LiSA. All pieces are exhibited with the artistʼs commentaries.
Mino Ware Production Centers
⚫︎The section on Bowls with Traditional Techniques introduces 10 works by Mino potters working in Shino ware, Oribe ware, "Ki-zeto" (Yellow Seto) ware, etc.
⚫ Mino kilns collectively producing some 90% of Japanese ramen bowls are introduced. Attention is given to the endless variety of clay as a source material, and we argue that the main feature of Mino lies in "techniques to design in clay." Many clays are found in Mino, so we investigate what kinds are used for what product. Photography by Yusuke Nishibe together with films by Yu Yamanaka portray relationships between clay and vessel, in the manner of drawing an expanding mandala.
Other Things on Display
⚫︎200 ramen bowls collected from all over Japan by Yasuyuki Kaga.
⚫︎New Ramen Stalls made by Takenaka Corporation (Tomoki Shoda, Genki Unno, Yuka Matsui, Yuito Mori), Tonerico:Inc., design office, and Takashi Nakahara, architect.
⚫︎Garden laid out by veig in 21_21 DESIGN SIGHTʼs sunken court, using "akamatsu" (Japanese red pines), important trees in the long and successful history of Mino ware.
⚫︎Original map featuring ramen shops located near to 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT. As eating is not permitted inside the exhibition, we hope this will allow visitors to enjoy ramen afterwards.