What Kind of Place Is Usagi no Nedoko?

— Surrounded by various stones and plants, everyone seems to be focused on their work. What are you working on right now?

We are making pieces that show the cross-section of dandelion fluff by embedding it in acrylic and then cutting it. They have just been finished, so the staff are now inspecting them.

— It is difficult to imagine how a cross-section of dandelion fluff even looks like.

That is true. It is something usually impossible to see. This is the series called Sola cube. Its characteristic are plants, embedded into 4-centimeter acrylic cubes. Here, at this building, we sort the plant material prior to embedding, inspect the finished products upon arrival and ship them out. We also make prototypes... This space functions as both a workshop and a lab where we implement these activities every day.

— Is it possible to embed just about anything in these acrylic cubes?

No, things containing moisture, hollow space, or those prone to fading of color when heated cannot be embedded. Acrylic is heated to nearly 200 degrees in a kiln, and pressure is applied as well. We also have a product series of pressed embedded flowers. Since the pressed flowers' color fades really quickly, these were difficult to produce until now. Through trial and error, such as reducing the amount of resin, we have become able to preserve the delicate flower colors exactly as they are. Also, when we first tried to embed this sea urchin in resin, it cracked apart under pressure.

— Wait, is this a sea urchin!?

Yes, this is the exoskeleton of an imperial urchin. These bumps are where the spikes used to grow. Sea urchin is related to starfish. When looking at it closely, it's shape cannot be deemed as spherical, but rather as an inflated pentagon. Countless holes are located between the spikes, and from there, pipe-like appendages, the tubular feet stem. Sea urchins may often be observed clinging to the side of tank in aquarium. They use these tubular feet to do that. Sea urchin exoskeletons exist in different colors depending on the species, such as pink, purple, and green, but they are all natural colors.

— Wow. I don't think I've ever thought about sea urchins so much before.

(laughs) And placed next to it is a geode, a type of crystal. Do you know how crystals are formed?

— No... I've only heard that they are formed underground, though.

Crystals are formed as crystallized quartz subjected to enormous heat and pressure gradually cools and crystallizes. There's magma inside the earth, right? As it cools and solidifies underground, the silicon dioxide in the surrounding water gradually becomes saturated and slowly crystallizes. It is believed that 70 percent of Earth is made of silicon dioxide, and crystallized quartz is also formed through crystallization of that. Glass is also silicon dioxide, and it is fascinating to consider that 70 percent of Earth is made of the same component.

— There is so much here that surprises me. One really learns so many different things each day.

We also have a confectionery workshop in this building. At one point we got the idea to recreate this geode as a sweet, so we made cream puffs that, when cut open, reveal crystal formations inside. We serve them at our cafe.

— (laughs) That's quite a leap all of a sudden. Wow, but it looks incredibly real!

At Usagi no Nedoko, we are always doing niche things like that. Niche, but with a wide point of entry.

— Here you also have many plants I have never seen before. They make it almost hard to know where to look. Is this a walnut?

Yes. It's a Japanese walnut.

— What are these sorakotoba beside it?

At Sola cube, we use what we call sorakotoba, words and phrases like the language of flowers that we assign to each piece. We come up with them based on the character of each plant, and for the Japanese walnut, it's Mutual Flourishing.

— Why did you choose that phrase for the Japanese walnut?

The shell of the Japanese walnut is extremely hard, but small animals like squirrels can gnaw through it and crack it open. Inside the walnut is a nutrient-rich part called the cotyledon, which the plant needs for germination, and that part happens to be a favorite food of squirrels. The walnut uses those nutrients to germinate, but at the same time, in order to sprout, it needs to be buried underground in the way squirrels store food. To survive the winter, squirrels bury walnuts in the ground, stockpile them, and eat them little by little. Then, when spring comes, the walnuts they have left uneaten begin to sprout. So walnuts and small animals exist in a mutually beneficial relationship. From the walnut’s point of view, it's like saying, "You can eat us as food. But leave just a few behind, and let us sprout too."

— I had no idea there was such a mechanism behind it. But once you know that, it makes perfect sense.

Some people choose it as a gift after learning where that phrase comes from. What is fascinating about plants is that, basically, they cannot move with their own power, so they adopt strategies for propagation that make use of other forces in nature. For example, this Ant tree here has the sorakotoba Ride the Flow, because it has a structure that allows its seeds to travel on the wind and be carried as far away as possible.

— It looks like a badminton shuttlecock.

That's right. It has a propeller-like structure with the seed attached at the bottom, so when it catches the wind, it spins and slowly falls. That extends the time it can stay in the air, allowing it to travel farther, and it also protects the seed from impact when it lands.

Beautiful as a Byproduct

— It is fascinating how plants seem to evolve in their own way, almost as if they have a will of their own.

What I find interesting about natural forms is that their shapes have meaning. Rather than taking on these forms to make them look beautiful, I think the forms they ended up in order to survive are beautiful as a result. And I think it is interesting even including the fact that the forms selected by nature are not necessarily the optimal solution.

With the help of Usagi no Nedoko, MOMOTARO JEANS created the Global Denim Kit, showing the origins and making of its denim within acrylic. These are displayed at MOMOTARO JEANS stores. Derived from that project.

— You're right, if there were one clear optimal solution, almost all plants would end up having the same shape.

Exactly! Even so, dandelions in the Aster family have a form that is remarkably well designed for propagation. Their leaves grow radially, pressed flat against the ground, which helps them retain warmth by staying close to the soil even when temperatures suddenly drop in winter, and that radial form also makes it easier for them to carry out photosynthesis as efficiently as possible. Then, after the flower withers, the stem shoots up again, and that is another mechanism for sending the fluff as far away as possible. Because the fluffy seeds can travel the farthest when it is dry and the wind is blowing, it is designed so that the parachute closes properly when it rains. In other words, it has a mechanism that prevents the fluff from being released when conditions are not right for it to travel far. Plants in the Aster family have proliferated explosively among plants, and I think the reason lies in their form and in the ways they propagate. They are the winners of the plant world, really.

— Even with familiar plants, once you start thinking about them that way, you notice so many things.

At Sola cube, we are always thinking about how to make things look beautiful by embedding them in acrylic, but that is only the means. Rather, I find the stories behind the plants fascinating, and I feel a much stronger desire to convey those stories.

— I completely understand that. Did you have many opportunities to come across these kinds of natural objects from childhood?

No, quite the opposite. I was born in Kyoto, but because my father’s job often took him overseas, I spent my early childhood in Southeast Asia, in places like Thailand and the Philippines. They were places rich in nature, but because public safety was not always good, I was not allowed to go outside very much. That feeling of nature being close by and yet out of reach stayed with me for a long time as a kind of hunger or longing, and I think that feeling burst out once I became an adult.

— This may be a bit of a stretch, but the idea of something being right there in front of you and yet out of reach overlaps with the plants encased in acrylic too.

That may be exactly right. You can see them, but you can't touch them. I have always been very drawn to duality, or to the coexistence of contradictions and opposing things at the same time. Like the relationship between light and darkness. I think Sola cube has that element as well. There was a time when I struggled with the idea of using artificial resin to express natural objects, but recently I have come to feel that contradiction itself is what makes it interesting.

— We have touched a little on your childhood, but what kind of child were you, Yoshimura?

I was the kind of child who loved arts and crafts class and would make things even without being told to. More than two-dimensional things like painting, I had an unusual fascination with and attachment to three-dimensional objects. I have heard that my great-grandfather was a miyadaiku, a temple carpenter, and this Usagi no Nedoko building was also built by him 85 years ago as living quarters for his apprentices. So perhaps there may be some connection between my own interest in three-dimensional objects and the fact that my ancestor was a temple carpenter.

— It's not exactly memory in the blood, but it does make you feel there may be something like that at work.

I am sure there is something. I never met my great-grandfather myself, but as a way of tracing my roots, I had always felt that one day I wanted to leave my job in Tokyo and start a business in Kyoto.

— What kind of work were you doing in Tokyo?

I worked for an advertising agency. It was the company I joined straight out of university.

— Is that right? That's a little unexpected.

Originally, I got enrolled in the Faculty of Policy Management at university, but not long after entering, I started thinking about dropping out. It was my decision to go, but I still could not let go of my interest in art, and I wanted to leave university once and try applying to an art school instead. In the middle of that, I took a general education class called Contemporary Art. The professor teaching it was the director of a museum, so I went to ask for advice. Then he said, "No, no, that would be a waste. You can study the cutting edge of art here at this school too, how about learning about the world of computer graphics and computer art?" That was what led me to think I might try studying computer graphics, and I chose a seminar where I could study animation.

— So this was the world of so-called media art and that kind of creative practice, right? How, then, did you end up going into advertising?

A video I made in university was picked up by television. It was about a three-minute animation, and there was something incredibly thrilling, almost electrifying, about seeing something I had made broadcast nationwide on terrestrial TV. That experience sparked my interest in the world of mass media, and I joined an advertising agency. I was first assigned to the marketing department, and then a few years later I moved to the creative department. I worked with clients in a wide range of industries, including automobiles, beverages, confectionery, games, insurance and other. In the end, I stayed there for ten years.

— That sounds like a fulfilling career, so why did you leave the world of advertising?

I also wonder why... I think I was in a very fortunate environment, and I genuinely enjoyed working on projects for clients, but at the same time, I also think there was always some part of me that felt unfulfilled. Deep down, I think I always had the desire to make something with my own hands, something people could physically touch and perceive, and to deliver that myself.

What Emerges When One Listens to Their Inner Voice

— So your childhood sensations and impulses never really disappeared.

Right. And I also had this feeling that I could not help wanting to do something where I took on all the risk myself. Maybe I wanted to throw everything into it, my money and my whole life, and see what I could do starting from scratch. So after coming home from work, I began making what would become the prototype for today’s Sola cube late at night. The first one I made was with the fruit of a sweetgum tree. I would come home after work and start making molds at around ten o’clock in the evening.

— Why did you choose that plant back then?

It is the kind of plant you find lying around everywhere. But I felt that everything I was looking for in beauty was contained in it. And I also thought that by embedding this ordinary sweetgum in resin like this, it could become something to be observed, something that might create a new perspective. I thought that would be interesting.

— The roots of Usagi no Nedoko really become visible there. But listening to you, I also get the sense that at that time you were not in a particularly positive state of mind.

I don't think I was. What was that feeling of dissatisfaction, I wonder... If I think about it now, there were probably two reasons. One was that advertising was not a place for self-expression, but a place for solving problems. In my case, I was probably hoping, if possible, to use it as a place for self-expression, and I think there was stress in not being able to do that. Looking back now, I think that idea itself was rather absurd, really (wry laugh).

— I see... And what was the other reason?

It is related to the first one, but when you are in the advertising industry, you start to admire the kind of glamorous work that wins advertising awards. But in reality, most of those projects go to the star players in the spotlight. Another reason was that I was stuck with this vague frustration, feeling that I would probably never get the chance to do that kind of work myself. So I thought that if that was the case, then even if it was something small, I would make something on my own at my own expense and try to nurture it little by little. Rather than starting from a logical or rational decision, I think it began more from a feeling that I simply could not not do it, or that I could not go on like that.

— Once you started that way, how long did it take before it became the form of Sola cube?

About a year, I would say. At first, I started by collecting all sorts of things. I just wanted to gather anything that caught my antenna. Not only natural objects, but artificial ones too. Plants, minerals, animal bones, bottles, buttons, bearings, gears... I collected anything and everything that caught my attention, even slightly. After collecting them, I began to look back over them calmly and put into words why they had interested me, and I also started classifying them as I collected them. As I did that, I came to realize that what interested me were things that are beautiful without trying to be beautiful, and something like functional beauty.

— So you mean things in which beauty appears as a byproduct, right?

Exactly. I realized that those are the kinds of things I am drawn to, whether they are artificial or natural. But at that point, I still had only a very vague idea of how to present them. From there, I refined my ideas a bit further, and that’s how I eventually arrived at the theme of the aesthetic beauty of plants. From there, I began experimenting with embedding branches, seeds, and flowers in resin. Opening Usagi no Nedoko was still five or six years away at that point, but I created Sola cube in 2006 and began selling it the following year. Little by little, more people started buying it, and more shops began carrying it. Eventually it grew beyond the scale of a side business, so in 2011 I finally left the company and went independent.

— So little by little, more and more people began to respond to your sensibility.

Yes. My earliest prototypes started with resin that I could handle myself, but when I reached the point where I wanted to try making them in highly transparent acrylic, I looked for a craftsman and moved on to the next stage of prototyping, saying, This is the kind of thing I would like to make. When I saw the finished result, I thought to myself something along the lines of, I have invented something really interesting...! But people around me were more like, What exactly is this supposed to be? 

— Just imagining that gap in reaction makes my chest tighten a little (wry laugh).

Now, I feel that objects like this, things without a practical function... though that may not be the best way to put it, non-utilitarian objects, have become easier for people to understand, but twenty years ago, more people were puzzled by them than not. I couldn't explain it very well myself either, and all I could really say was something like, I don't know... isn't it just kind of good? Even so, every now and then there were people it resonated with, so I began expanding the sales channels for Sola cube with the feeling that if it reached even one person out of a hundred, that would be enough. Usagi no Nedoko feels like an extension of that.

Days of Trial and Error. Today, Again.

— But just because something has no clear practical use that does not mean it is meaningless, or does it?

Exactly! Sola cube may not have an obvious function, but if it can quietly enter someone’s heart and make them feel something, then I think that can be called a function in its own right. Everything currently sold at Usagi no Nedoko is exactly like that. By its mere presence, it might make everyday life a little richer, allow someone to step into a world different from the everyday, or bring them a sense of comfort... And if these can become that kind of presence, then I believe this is precisely what is needed in the world today.

— So when you said that Usagi no Nedoko is niche, but with a wide point of entry, this is the idea that was behind it all, right? I had also been curious about the origin of the name, and hearing all this, I wonder, is it indeed a play on unagi no nedoko, the Japanese expression for a long, narrow space? In a way, it was also about setting it apart from something with a narrow frontage and a long depth.

To begin with, I already had this machiya townhouse built by my great-grandfather, so when I went independent, I had also decided that I wanted to try running lodging accommodations. And since Kyoto machiya really are like unagi no nedoko, I thought the sound of nedoko, meaning “sleeping place,” was appealing. At the same time, I had decided that, as the flagship shop for Sola cube, the entire platform would be themed around the beauty of natural forms, so I was looking for a good name that could also be tied to that. As I was researching, I came across a plant called club moss (hikagenokazura), and one of its names was usagi no nedoko.

— So it was not a coined name, but an existing name to begin with!?

Yes. We still display dried hikagenokazura at the entrance to the shop, and it is a plant with a very primitive-looking form that feels slightly soft and fluffy to the touch. I thought it would be wonderful if this plant could serve as our icon, and I also liked the sound of Usagi no Nedoko. There would also be lodging on the second floor, and it also echoed unagi no nedoko. It all seemed to click neatly into place, and I decided that this should be the name.

— Now that we have seen something of Usagi no Nedoko’s past and present, how do you think about its future?

Even now, I feel a little embarrassed, or perhaps hesitant, to put it into words, but I have been feeling more and more strongly that I want to express something in the world of art. People had often said to me, if you are interested in three-dimensional objects and forms, why not work in the art world? But I deliberately avoided that path myself. There are several reasons, but above all, I think it was my own way of running away. Part of me felt that I could not compete in that world, and I had a complex about people with far more overwhelming talent. That is precisely why, to be honest, I kept myself from stepping into the very center of the art world, instead aiming for the spaces around it and trying to work in arenas with less competition.

— I imagine many people who are drawn to creation and expression have wrestled with that same question of whether or not to pursue art. Was there any particular turning point that changed the way you thought about it?

A few years ago, Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons had a solo exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and for me, the fact that it was held in that setting was major news. Of course, I understand that she has continued to do radically original work for a very long time, but her primary arena is still fashion and the world of business, so I thought it was truly remarkable that, after working in a different field, her achievements were recognized on one of the biggest stages in the art world. It may sound presumptuous, but I thought that if Usagi no Nedoko could one day achieve something even remotely similar, and acquire a place for presentation, then, I could just be able to die peacefully. I would be able to say that it was the result of seeing my work through to the end, and that it was also proof that I had lived.

— You were inspired by that intensity.

Yes. And we also have a staff member named Aoyama, who handles everything related to our products, from inventory control to product development, and he creates artworks in his private life. He is not the only one. We have many staff members who have their own world of expression outside of work, and I myself am inspired by them as well. By nature, I am not very good at functioning in groups, but even for someone like me, I feel incredibly fortunate to be a part of an environment nurturing such similar values.

— Surely those connections, too, are something that the creation process has brought into your life.

That is absolutely true. It was the same when MOMOTARO JEANS first approached us. I could feel their deep passion toward creating, and that made me want to try to work with them. As someone who also occupies a small corner of the creating world, I felt I had to approach it with complete seriousness. Until then, I had rarely had the chance to engage with denim, but once I actually did, I felt there was something in it that resonated with the beauty of natural forms. They let us take on quite challenging projects. The expectations seemed high, and I was ready to give it my all.

— So, deep down inside, the passion toward creativity still remains your driving force.

Maybe that is true. To be honest, making things is and incredibly inefficient business. There will be a lot of loss, you have to hold inventory, and it takes up physical space. In that sense, I think it runs completely against the times. And yet, even so, I think it cannot be helped. After all, we simply love making things.

PROFILE

Koichi Yoshimura

Born in 1978 in Kyoto Prefecture. After spending early childhood in Southeast Asia, Yoshimura returned to Japan in his teens and enrolled in the Faculty of Policy Management at Keio University, later transferring to the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies. After graduating, Yoshimura joined an advertising agency, where he worked with multiple companies as a market planner and copywriter. Encouraged by the growing scale of Sola cube, which he had begun developing through trial and error, while selling when still employed, Yoshimura became independent in 2011, and in 2014 he founded Usagi no Nedoko, through which he shares objects and experiences centered on the beauty of natural forms. To this day, he continues to pursue activities that defy easy categorization, including exhibitions and sales in Japan and abroad, as well as the production of publications.

@usaginonedoko_kyoto

@solakoichi