Exhibition: つぐ、つむぐ。- Inherit, Imagine. -

Kintsugi [mending broken crockery with lacquer and gold], darning. Selection, adaptive re-use. The spirit of respecting the history of objects while repurposing them for new uses has a long unbroken history in both Britain and Japan. The past is not simply preserved, but transformed so that it connects with the future. This exhibition introduces two artists who link that spirit with modern-day modes of expression. Taihei Soejima straddles the apparently conflicting technologies of analogue photography and generative AI, together with painting, to show photography’s function as a recording medium. The concept of authenticity in histories and stories is being undermined by technological developments, and he poses to us the fundamental question of what sort of stories we need for our human existence in the age of the AI boom. Taking the perspective of a hairdresser who regularly dresses her customers in kimonos, Yoko Imamura sublimates kimonos that can no longer be worn into present-day wearable art. Her works give these kimonos new shapes and functions while respecting their former existence, posing new questions for viewers about tradition, memory, and the value of materials. In their different ways, they both use the inherited traditions of their medium to show how, with imagination, it can be developed in new directions. Read more Toggle Installation Design / Fashion Painting Mixed media Crafts Photography