I am very excited to be writing these lines announcing the launch of Dekoboko, an online gallery and shop featuring products for everyday use that are made in Japan. Although the gallery features a variety of products, you will notice that its emphasis is on kōgei (工芸 – “arts and crafts”).
Our goal with Dekoboko is simple: we want to pick beautiful items for everyday use that are made in Japan and feature them in our online gallery for people to view, appreciate and purchase.
But it is not just about curating products. We also want to reach out to crafts people and artisans, showcase their work, learn about their creative process and sources of inspiration and share this with you, our visitors.
Dekoboko is, in essence, a passion project. Being an engineer, researcher and consultant, I have spent all of my student and professional life dealing with technical challenges. Although one could argue that problem-solving is an art, I always admired people who can create things of beauty. Therefore, aside from a business venture, Dekoboko is also an attempt to cultivate my creative side and, even though not artistically inclined myself, learn and write about people who are. As Soetsu Yanagi, Japanese philosopher, art historian and poet wrote in the book The Beauty of Everyday Things: “Aside from the hand of God, there is no tool as astonishingly creative as the human hand”.
It is difficult to pinpoint when and how I developed an interest in Kōgei. Maybe the seed was planted during my first encounter with Japan and Japanese culture in 2010. Perhaps it was my business partner’s influence with his incessant praise of almost everything Japanese since we first met in 2011. At the core of it, I think, lies an interest in objects with not only a high aesthetic value but also with a utilitarian purpose i.e., not art for art’s sake. Japan has a longstanding tradition in the creation of such objects, with aesthetic principles often rooted in Zen Buddhism and a deep appreciation of nature. The result is uncontrived designs embracing simplicity and imperfection.
I have to emphasize here that we are also appreciative of handicrafts from other countries with rich tradition such as China, Korea, or even Greece, my home country. In fact, we plan to have guest collections from other countries in the future. We are just focusing on Kōgei for now because… well, because we really like it!
Kōgei spans a number of categories; we are launching Dekoboko with a focus on ceramics, metalware (particularly tin) and glassware. Unfortunately, we have not yet been able to travel to Japan in search of artisans and crafts people due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. This has somewhat limited our collection to works from more established and medium-sized studios, but we look forward to expanding our collection and including many more works from individual artists in the near future.
We will be documenting our trips, sharing highlights with you and blogging about things we learn as we progress.
We hope that our interest will become contagious, and that people will join us and support our journey. We look forward to having you with us so please stay tuned!
If you are an artisan in Japan, we would love to hear about your work and discuss a potential collaboration; please contact us at info@dekoboko.sg.
Christos Lampris
Dekoboko Owner and Director