Tokyokamen’s Travels

9 March - 1 April 2007

   Tokyokamen, or Tokyo-mask, is the name of a unit of fashion designers, Akihiko Ando and Eri Uchiyama. Although the two designers' activities have been primarily in the area of costume design, they launched this new project last year in order to try a different approach from designing clothes. As the key word for this project, they chose an old Japanese verb, 'Kabuku', or 'to lean', a word which is said to be the origin of the name of traditional Japanese theater, Kabuki. By projecting the figures of Kabuki actors - who took people living through the turbulence of early-modern times by surprise with their bizarre costume and eccentric behavior - into the contemporary world, they try to visualize power generated from chaos.

   The pop and colorful design of Tokyokamen, which reminds us of masks worn by lucha libre wrestlers, has been developed into products like cushions, handbags, T-shirts and dolls. Among them, the doll series consists the core of the whole project as they symbolically personify the broad range of perceptions and values of people living in a seemingly uniformized city like Tokyo. While these dolls may look lovely for some people but eerie for others, nourished by the swirling energy of the city, they may be our new neighbors, secretly proliferating in contemporary Tokyo .

   The dolls of Tokyokamen first appeared in the open gallery of the Hanae Mori building in Omotesando last year. After being exhibited in Paris, in this third exhibition, these dolls are unfolded in the form of an installation inspired by the story of Gulliver's Travels.

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● Opening reception Tokyokamen Ball: March 9, from 6PM to 9PM

● Workshop: Tokyokamen Classroom - a workshop to create your original hand-made Tokyokamen dolls. Tea party with Tokyo-kamen original cookie after each workshop / Instructor: Eri Uchiyam

- Date: March 11 Sunday and March 25 Sunday, from 1PM to 4PM

*please make a reservation beforehand either by telephone or e-mail/Maximum participants: up to 10 people for each workshop/ Participating Fee: 6,000 yen (for doll kid, tea and cookie)

■ Exhibition view

■ Tokyo Kamen Classroom on March 11

1. ‣ Japanese

photo by momoko japan