A new exhibition called NUNO: The Language of Textiles in the Inamori Pavilion in the Japanese Friendship Garden in the Japanese Friendship Garden may inspire you to look at fabric in a whole new way.
NUNO Fair teaches the language of textiles
The Japanese Friendship Garden provides a great escape from the festive hustle and bustle. Walking back through the peaceful garden and pools, you’ll end up at the Inamori Pavilion where the gently flowing water will provide an idyllic acoustic scene for a visit to NUNO’s new gallery: The Language of Textiles.
Beth Acomando
As the wind blows across the pavilion, elegant, gently draped fabrics flow like ghostly shapes. The fabrics are a showcase for NUNO designs, a Japanese company run by Reiko Sudo that combines old and new.
NUNO, a Japanese weaver (布), began in 1984 and according to its website, “worked with weavers and dyers in Japan, combining ancient practices with new techniques to create original, distinctive, and modern textiles.” She uses independent spinning and dyeing machines and mills in villages across Japan to create what she describes as textiles where “nature and tradition are woven with technology.”
Chad Patton, managing director of Material Things, NUNO’s international distributor, said the show demonstrates the evolution of textile design.
“It’s a NUNO evolution,” he said. “But it’s also about how overall textile design has changed over the past 30 years. And I think NUNO has been the driving force in those changes.”
These changes include not only creating new technologies for making fabrics that contain paper, feathers or masking tape, but also working to reduce industrial waste and keep textile-making traditions alive.
“There are only two silk weaving towns left in Japan, and they are trying to revitalize the silk industry in Japan. So they asked Rikuo Sudo to go to the factory and come up with some way to revitalize it,” Patton said. “Well, she went, and they expected her to come up with new designs. But instead, she looked in the corner of the factory and there was a big pile of dirty white stuff. And she said, ‘What is that?'” And he said, “This is kibeso, the outer part of silk, the very outermost layer of the silk cocoon. And it has short fibres, too short to sew.” So she was thrown away and said, “Why don’t we spin this?” And they said, ‘That’s impossible. So she hired some old women in the village who had retired from the silk textile mills to spin it at home.’
You can now see examples of how these fibers work in textiles.
Visitors can see firsthand the dramatic results of different textile production techniques. You can even get a close-up of the fabric used in the gorgeous kimono worn by a geisha in the American movie “Ghost in the Shell.”
Paramount / DreamWorks
Because fabric serves a very functional purpose, you may not think of it as art but for Patton, the creative process begins with the design of the fabric and continues with the buyer.
“How they use texture is part of the creative process,” he said. “The creative process doesn’t end until the canvas is used. And that’s NUNO’s philosophy. I personally think design is art, but with design, you think about the goal. With art in its purest form, you don’t think about the goal, and that’s the difference.”
NUNO: The language of textiles will fascinate you in the entire fabric-making process. The exhibition runs until February 27 at the Inamori Pavilion at the Japan Friendship Garden.