Finnish Glass Biennale Recruits Designer Akira Minagawa as Curator
The renowned Japanese designer Akira Minagawa has been tapped as the curator of the first Finnish Glass Biennale.
A multidisciplinary talent, he is the founder of the design brand minä perhonen, and has collaborated with such companies as Issey Miyake, Muji and Kvadrat, as well as Finnish ones like Artek, Lapuan Kankurit and Iittala. The minimalist favors functionality, nature-inspired touches and true craftsmanship.
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From June 5 to 8, the inaugural Finnish Glass Biennale will be held in an assortment of venues in Riihimäki, Nuutajärvi and Iittala. In addition to orchestrating the main exhibition, and a workshop for young designers, he will create a collection of glass art pieces that will be featured in the biennale.
Having been visiting Scandinavia and its “excellent glass artists and glass factories” for nearly 40 years, the designer said he has stayed in touch with some of these artists and has observed the transition of their creations and its current state of glass production. “I hope that this biennale will become a catalyst for a global attention to glass creation, as well as an attention to detail of human handcrafted creations,” he said.
Looking ahead, Minagawa said some of his future plans include creating monuments for urban planning, and also creating artwork in Paris. This fall there will be a new exhibition of his studio minä perhonen’s work. “TSUGU minä perhonen” will run Nov. 22 through Feb. 1 at the Setagaya Art Museum in Tokyo. It will then be staged at several other museums over the next three years. Last year his art and textiles were showcased in “Design = Memory Akira Minagawa & minä perhonen” at the Nationalmuseum Sweden’s museum of art and design.
From Minagawa’s perspective, the fields of fashion and glass are very similar in terms of the degree of collaboration between creators and artisans. “The skills of knowing the process and guiding to creation can be spoken in a similar point of view,” he said.
However, It is becoming more difficult to foster good artisans, engineers and factories, due to an increase in the mass production of products, he said. “We believe that it is necessary to preserve good material resources and good partnership for future creations.”
His favorite designers include the recently retired Dries Van Noten. He also is a fan of the artists Richard Serra, Roni Horn and Henri Matisse, and the photographers Marc Riboud, Yoshihiko Ueda, and Sebastião Salgado.
All in all, the designer said he wishes that when people are buying clothes, they would “question whether the clothes are properly manufactured without any issues of human or environmental problems in the production process of materials and manufacturing.” Also, he wishes they would consider “whether the clothes they own can be used for a long time.”
As for the most influential figure in his life, Minagawa highlighted Viktor Emil Frankl’s books for helping him to think about the meaning of human life, especially “Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslage [Man’s Search for Meaning].”
With many tasks ahead, Minagawa wishes he had the time to “go on a long-term journey around the world and take many years to make a work of art.”
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