Contained Vessels – Crafting Daily Rituals | Exhibition Opening Remarks

For the rituals of everyday life — craft for “ordinary people”

In museums, the crafts most often celebrated have been grand pieces: imposing jars, large plates, matcha bowls, lacquer boxes inlaid with mother-of-pearl. They astonish with their technique and carry the weight of history. Of course, they deserve to be admired and spoken about.

Yet when I looked around my own life, I realized how far away those objects seemed. So many of them, though called craft, could never truly be used. That sense of something isn’t quite right was what first set me on this path.

I began to think: handmade things should live closer to daily life. Perhaps it’s because I have always been drawn less to stories of great figures and heroes, and more to the quiet lives of ordinary people on the margins.

Stories of the remarkable are full of events worth retelling. But as the listener, I often feel left behind—satiated, as though I’ve had my fill. Meanwhile, the small, almost trivial moments and stories of nameless people carry a strange kind of reality. At unexpected times, they seem to connect directly to my own sense of what is real.

So I began to wonder whether, through craft, I could create something that resonates with that inner sense of reality—something that might quietly lend strength to the lives of ordinary people.

A canister for coffee.
A butter case on the breakfast table.
None of them draw attention, yet their presence alone brings a gentle order to daily life. Such tools may seem insignificant, but by modestly supporting the everyday from the background, they play an important part.

To make is not simply to serve function. It is to listen—to the work of those before us, to the voice of the material, and to respond softly to the life of someone living now. It is to sense the beauty that hides within the everyday, and to attune oneself to the texture of life itself. That, I believe, is the role of craft.

Not at the center of history, nor on the stage of heroic events, but at the edges—there lies a value of life easily overlooked. I want to hold onto that perspective, and continue making vessels that support the small rituals of daily life.