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 Mio Yamada

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Mio Yamada
A freelance arts and lifestyle editor and writer, Mio Yamada focuses on design, crafts and architecture. When she’s not visiting galleries and trade fairs, you'll find her taking photos of everything and being distracted by shiny objects. She's also surprisingly British.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Mar 27, 2015
The measure of all things is limitless
In its light-hearted approach of presenting exhibits that include everyday items, contemporary design, artwork and historical objects, "Measuring: This Much, That Much, How Much?" at 21_21 Design Sight has its fair share of crowd pleasers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 19, 2015
The Suzukis' coffee cups runneth over
Among the hundreds of gilded and finely painted cups and saucers of "Demitasse Cosmos: Glitter of Jewelry" at the Mitsui Memorial Museum is a modest set that may be easily overlooked. Emerald green in glaze, with a simple black handle and rim, it's a far cry from its neighbors that impress with gold...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 27, 2015
Video artist Duncan Campbell sees between the lines
When Irish artist Duncan Campbell won the Turner Prize last December, it was met with both high praise and criticism, as often happens with the notoriously controversial event. But perhaps such a difference in perception is appropriate.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 30, 2014
Kunisaki Art Festival shows works worth the hike
To visit Antony Gormley's "Another Time" — a life-sized iron figure which looks eastward across Oita Prefecture's Sento district of Kunisaki from atop a mountain ledge — is a breathtaking experience. Not just because it's a stong piece of art or that the location offers a stunning vista of verdant...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 28, 2014
2328 umbrellas + one drone + OK Go = made-in-Japan brilliance
“When you're employing hundreds of umbrellas that all have to go up at the same time — there's going to be problems,” says Damian Kulash, the lead singer of OK Go.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 28, 2014
OK Go shares a love of Japan with fans
'Sharing' used to be a dirty word in the music industry, but OK Go have been instrumental in changing that.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 2, 2014
Susumu Shingu knows which way the wind blows
Less than five minutes into conversation, Susumu Shingu's wife, Yasuko, pulls out a large binder crammed with photographs, sketches and drawings and starts flipping through images of her husband's most recent sculptures.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 21, 2014
Ballet's dance with the avant-garde
On May 29, 1913, the Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris witnessed what has become a tale of artistic scandal re-told and exaggerated to almost mythic proportions. It is said that just seconds after the stage curtain was raised, the Ballet Russes' performance of Igor Stravinksy's "The Rite of Spring"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 25, 2014
'Specters, Ghosts and Sorcerers in Ukiyo-e'
Ghouls, monsters, specters, ghosts — all manner of the supernatural have long fascinated and frightened in all cultures, but the Japanese have historically enjoyed a particularly entertaining, and pictorial, relationship with the eerie and uncanny.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 19, 2014
'You Reach Out — Right Now — for Something: Questioning the Concept of Fashion'
Though fashion is often dismissed as just trends in clothing, it has always had a close relationship with art — whether it has been depicted within art, is influenced by it or is considered as artwork itself. Based on magazine editor Nakako Hayashi's 2011 book "Expanded Fashion," this exhibition explores...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Dec 18, 2013
Old ways to break the mold of mass production
The simplicity of form and color on display at "Product Design Today: Creating 'Made in Japan' " is undeniable. The ceramics are predominantly white, wooden items reveal natural grains, cast iron is kept jet black, contours are uncomplicated and there is not one single ostentatious embellishment.
Japan Times
Events / Events In Tokyo
Dec 12, 2013
Find art contained at affordable prices
The Container, the freight-container-sized gallery in Nakameguro that has been impressively punching above its weight in Tokyo's art scene since 2011, is taking its mantra of "art for everyone" one step further with its latest show. Described as "shamelessly" manufacturing and retailing contemporary...
Japan Times
Events / Events In Tokyo
Dec 5, 2013
Original gifts pop up in Harajuku
If you're out of ideas for gifts this Christmas, photographic art specialists Subject Matter and creative agency UltraSuperNew's Pop Up Gallery is worth a visit.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 6, 2013
Issei Suda: everything but square
Baring its teeth and twisting awkwardly as it struggles against a rope around its neck, the distressed goat in Issei Suda's 1976 photo appears slightly demonic. Its white fur glows uncannily against a mass of dark branches, while its mud-streaked horns and hooves make it all the more ominous. Trapped...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / Japan Pulse
Oct 28, 2013
Tokyo Designers Week 2013
This year's Tokyo Designers Week gets its creative juices flowing with more markets, music and a festival vibe.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / Japan Pulse
Oct 24, 2013
Isetan Mitsukoshi Design Week
Isetan showcase lifestyle brands with its Designers Week product fair 'Hand Made By For Me.'
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Oct 10, 2013
Psssst! Wanna bottle of fresh air?
Is that bottle of air half full or half empty?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 4, 2013
The poster nation of unusual graphic design
Art often thrives as it wriggles out from under a big heavy rock. This can be said about creativity in Czechoslovakia from the 1960s to '80s. As the nation broke free of Stalinism, careered toward the Prague Spring and then finally celebrated the end of Communism in 1989, music, art and film began mixing...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 19, 2013
Darren Johnston: dance's accidental controversialist
In 2003, prominent arts writer Allen Robertson wrote in The Times: "If there was a Turner Prize for dance, Darren Johnston would undoubtedly be on the shortlist."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 31, 2013
Big works buoyed by Dojima River's 'Little Water'
Standing in front of the largest work at the Dojima River Biennale, currently showing at the Dojima River Forum in Fukushima, Osaka, is a mesmerizing experience. A 10-meter-tall digital projection of an ethereal cascading waterfall, it glows mysteriously as its gentle rumbling permeates the dimly lit...

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