Kintsugi-woogi

Each year the VERVE project hosts a Visiting Maker (a micro Artist in Residence scheme). In the autumn of 2015, Muneaki Shimode and Takahiko Sato came to Oxford, all the way from Kyoto, to demonstrate and teach the Japanese method of ceramic repair known as Kintsugi.

Muneaki Shimode and Takahiko Sato © Pitt Rivers Museum

Kintsugi can be roughly translated as 'Gold Joinery' and involves the repair of broken ceramics with Urushi lacquer, and then applying gold powder to the surface before the lacquer dries. Rather than disguise or hide the damage, the cracks and chips are accentuated with raised gold lines, celebrating cherished or valuable ceramics, and allowing them to be used once more.

This approach to repairing ceramics is very different from the usual European methods where any signs of damage are hidden away and disguised with near-invisible joins.

Although only here for 10 days in November 2015, Muneaki and Takahiko managed to pack in a huge amount including an evening event looking at Japanese Ceramics in Oxford (Fired Works Night), staff and public talks, and three taught workshops for 60 people to learn hands-on kintsugi repair techniques.

Muneaki and Takahiko also carried out kintsugi repairs in the museum galleries using damaged ceramics kindly donated from the Friends of the Pitt Rivers Museum. This allowed members of the public to see the process up close and allowed Muneaki and Takahiko to share their expert knowledge and answer questions.

Kintsugi public workshop © Pitt Rivers Museum

Due to the materials and chemicals used in kintsugi, the workshops were restricted to adults, however a Children’s activity – ‘Marvelous Mending’ - explained the ideas behind the technique to a younger audience. A small case display was also installed to document the residency and showcase some of the work. All in all, no part of the museum was left kintsugi free!

So a little more about the artists: Muneaki Shimode works as a Maki-e artist, using various Urushi lacquers, pigments and gold powders to decorate Buddhist temples and altars. He does not describe himself as a professional kintsugi artist as there is no such profession in Japan. However it is common for Maki-e to carry out kintsugi as a sideline to their main work as they have the skills of using Urushi, extremely precise brush-work and handling gold powders.

Takahiko Sato is president of a family business producing the various forms of Urushi lacquer. Urushi lacquer is the refined sap of the Urushi tree, a tree native to SE Asia and a member of the poison ivy family. In its raw state, the sap is a translucent brown colour and can cause painful burns if it comes in contact with the skin. However, in the presence of oxygen and high humidity, the sap slowly hardens after which it can be handled safely.

Although Muneaki and Takahiko have now returned to Kyoto, they have not entirely left the museum.  Two of the ceramics they worked on and samples of the materials they used have been accessioned into the museum collection. These are very interesting pieces, as they both come from the first firing of the ‘Dragon Kiln’ built as part of the Oxford Anagama project at Wytham Woods. This is a special type of traditional wood fired Japanese kiln originally from the Bizen area of Japan, which has been built by a team of Japanese and UK master potters.

A repaired plate will also join the Museum’s handling collection where it will be used in future education and outreach activities to allow visitors to pick up and handle the plate and see how the repairs look and feel.

Having these objects in the collection, repaired in this traditional way, gives the museum a very unique link between traditional crafts in both Oxford and Japan and the craftspeople themselves.

Watch our short film where Muneaki and Takahiko explain the philosophy and skill behind the craft, whilst following the journey of a single broken dish - and its owner - through the repair process:

  Kintsugi at Pitt Rivers Museum from Pitt Rivers Museum on Vimeo.

Our many thanks go to everyone who volunteered their time and helped with planning and organizing events, activities, workshops, breaking plates, donating ceramics and all the visitors who came and made the project a success.

Thanks also must go to the Heritage Lottery Fund, the principle supporter of the VERVE project, and the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, who provided funding to bring Muneaki and Takahiko over from Japan. The greatest thanks of all must go to Muneaki and Takahiko themselves, who were so willing to share their knowledge.

If you missed their visit and would like to see the repaired ceramics, they are currently on display on the Museum’s Lower Gallery until 24 April 2016.

Display of Kintsigi repair on the Museum's Lower Gallery 

Andrew Hughes
VERVE Conservator

Visible Mending with Tom of Holland

This autumn we ran two 'Darning Masterclasses' with textiles practitioner Tom van Deijnen (AKA Tom of Holland). They sold out almost instantly. Here, Tom explains his techniques and celebrates 'visible mending', many examples of which can be found on objects in the Pitt Rivers Museum collections!

Detail of a gourd vessel, decoratively repaired
using beads; 1979.20.167 © Pitt Rivers Museum

"There is a temporary case exhibit at the Museum (until 3 January 2016) called 'Preserving What is Valued' and an accompanying museum trail. They demonstrate how people from all parts of the world repair their material culture. Conservators study objects in great detail and part of their role is to determine at what stage a repair has been made. If the repair was made by the originating community while it was still in use this provides an additional level of information and can give the object a deeper resonance. Identifying an original repair can raise questions that make us think about the object’s history differently.


"I was invited to run two darning classes as part of the events accompanying this display. My name is Tom and I’m a self-taught textile practitioner, and one of the things I do is run the Visible Mending Programme. Through this programme I seek to highlight that the art and craftsmanship of clothes repair is particularly relevant in a world where more and more people voice their dissatisfaction with fashion’s throwaway culture. By exploring the story behind garment and repair, the programme reinforces the relationship between the wearer and garment, leading to people wearing their existing clothes for longer, with the beautiful darn worn as a badge of honour.

"A mother's work" Repair commission for a private client © Tom van Deijnen

Left: Swiss darning in action by one of the participants. Right: a completed practice swatch,
showing a stocking darn and rows of Swiss daring in bold colours. © Tom van Deijnen

"The darning classes were well attended and the participants were taught two classic knitwear repair techniques: firstly Swiss darning, also known as 'duplicate stitching', which is a good way to reinforce thinning fabrics such as elbows on sleeves, or to cover up stains.


"The second technique taught was the classic stocking darn, using a darning mushroom. It creates a woven patch that is integrated with the knit fabric, and is a good way to repair holes. Of course this is best known for sock repairs.

"Throughout the classes, I shared many hints and tips on repairing, such as what tools and materials to use for best results, examples of my work, and how to look after your woollens. Half-way through  we had a break, and everybody was encouraged to see the display cabinet and follow the museum trail to find original repairs.

The Pitt Rivers Museum is home to many repaired objects from all over the world, as well as closer to home. Shown here are details from a delicate muslin handkerchief with some rather crude darns, and and a tortoiseshell comb mended with a riveted metal strip, both from a collection made in Essex, UK; 1949.9.121 and 1949.9.373 © Pitt Rivers Museum

"I found the repairs very inspiring: an inventive use of locally available materials such as baste fibres, small decorative additions such as beads, or the neat way stitching cracks, the use of staples, or even items made in such a way that they could be easily repaired in the future. I won’t go into too much detail, as it’s fun so go and see it all for yourself!


Tom van Deijnen

http://tomofholland.com

The Preserving What is Valued case exhibit and museum trail at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 29 June 2015 – 3 January 2016. More information."

The Sound of Northern Lights

Hi, I'm Ali Orr, Technician for the VERVE (Need Make Use) project at the Pitt Rivers Museum. My main role at the Museum is to design and make new exhibitions as well as assisting and providing technical support for VERVE's outreach and AfterHours programmes. Often this means getting involved with audio-visual side of things...

The museum roof bathed in green and blue 'Northern Lights' © Pitt Rivers Museum 

In November 2014, the Museum was once again a key fixture of Oxford's annual 'Christmas Light Festival'. Our theme, in keeping with the winter season, was everything Arctic. The night was titled 'Northern Lights' to tie into both the famous book by Philip Pullman (which draws on the Museum), and the aurora light phenomena in the skies that occur at high, polar latitudes. We planned a torchlight experience that has proved so popular in the past, with the lights turned low and coloured effects. However, sound would be also be crucial to the overall experience. I am passionate about music from a wide variety of genres including branches of Electronica, Reggae, Hip Hop, Classical, Folk and World music. I have picked up on the latter a great deal since working at the Museum and being exposed to the music of other cultures that I might never have otherwise come across. I also have a bit of experience with sound production as a hobby. With all this in mind, I volunteered to put together a soundscape for the event in my own time.

We already had recordings of museum staff speaking about Arctic items in the collection (part of our standard audioguide). We were thrilled when Philip Pullman, patron of the Friends of the Pitt Rivers Museum, agreed to some specially commissioned recordings of him reading favourite exerpts from his book Northern Lights. These included Lyra's first visit to the 'other' Pitt Rivers in the 'other' Oxford, her Arctic journey with the armoured bear Iorek Byrinson, and her encounter with the witch queen. My challenge was to weave these vocal parts together into a single atmospheric piece.

Together with help and inspiration from another volunteer and experienced podcaster Alison Cooper, we found a number of ambient samples to evoke feelings of being at the North Pole such as wind, water and animal sounds. Alison also gave me the idea of layering some samples over the narration to add depth and context to the words. I then decided to hunt down as much music from the Arctic region as I could find, which was a challenge, but it would be a good representation of indigenous peoples such as the Inuit, Evenki, and Sami. A distinctive style of music from northern regions is 'throat singing' - in the Tuvan version from Mongolia it is a type of overtone singing employing harmonies, but among the Inuit, it is more of a duelling duet of sound produced when inhaling and exhaling!

Exploring carved ivory © Pitt Rivers Museum

There are some great websites where we found Creative Commons Licensed sounds (such as Freesound) and we also bought or licensed tracks; a fantastic source for ethnographic field recordings is Smithsonian Folkways, a non-profit record label that promotes cultural diversity through the documentation, preservation and dissemination of sound. 

Once I had all the material, it was just a matter of putting it together using Ableton Live software. This meant several hours of deciding on a running order, adjusting each section to similar levels, adding in a few effects, and just generally playing around with it until it sounded good! Audio equipment and speakers were provided by Oxford firm startech for professional sound delivery.

The event was incredibly popular, and 1200+ visitors entered the museum with a torch in controlled numbers throughout the night. The soundtrack looped about three times, allowing the different visitors to enjoy it. I ended with a 40-minute mix of Electronica drawing on music from all around the world. This also seemed to go down very well - I even saw a few people dancing!

You can check out photos from the event on our Facebook album plus listen to the full Arctic mix (46 minutes) and Ethnic Electronica mix (42 minutes) below. Full tracklists are available on our SoundCloud playlist.

I am proud of the end result, especially as I have never attempted anything like this before and I have since heard some good feedback. Staff and volunteers did a great job to help make the event a success too. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience - I learned a lot and discovered some great new music for my own growing collection. Hopefully, I'll get the chance to do something similar for future events - next I'm putting together a soundtrack of European folk music for our AfterHours: Folklore and Storytelling event on Thursday 4th December - see you there!


Alistair Orr
VERVE Technician

A new addition to the project team!

We're delighted to welcome a new member to the VERVE: Need / Make / Use team - Jozie Kettle. 

Hi, I'm Jozie, the new VERVE Communications and Events Officer. Having studied for a Masters degree based at 'the Pitt' from 2010 - 2011, I'm super excited to be returning to contribute to a project as meaningful as VERVE.

To be able to assist with enhancing the accessibility of a collection as fantastic as the Pitt's is a unique opportunity and I'm itching to start. I am particularly looking forward to hitting the road and taking the Pitt Rivers Pop-up Tent on tour...look out for us in a field near you soon!

Previously, I managed events at The Foundling Museum in London and I have experience ranging from organising education days and artists networking events, to Mad Hatter's tea parties, outdoor cinemas, and mass 'soup-ins'!

If you would like any information about upcoming events or activities drop me an email.

Jozie