Our journey began with a shared curiosity - exploring materials, processes, and the spaces between art, design, and technology.
In Brazil, we built a mobile furnace turning drinking cans into street furniture. With local fishermen we collected plastic at sea and made them into new objects.
In China, we explored the world’s largest human hair market, creating Shanghai Deco-style pieces. Deep in the Amazon Rainforest, we learned how to tap and process wild rubber.
By 2017, New Spring became our first big breakthrough - an artwork inspired by the impermanence of nature, a tree that produces mist-filled bubbles.
By 2020, our practice evolved into large-scale immersive installations, blurring the line between the natural and the artificial. This marked the birth of @a.a.murakami , a new chapter of exploration.
We have an exciting year ahead - can’t wait to share this journey with you.
#aamurakami #ayearwithaamurakami #installationart #immersiveinstallation #arttechnology #bubbles #clouds #fashion #artist #sculpture #experience #exhibition #art #artinstallation #contemporaryart #digitalart #ephemeraltech
Three of our projects from 10+ years ago showing at Design Sight 21/21 in Tokyo. Hair Highway (2014), Can City (2013) and Sea Chair (2012). Heady days trudging the streets of São Paulo collecting cans and smelting them down in our mobile furnace, trawling the seas for plastic and making it into ship stools on the fisherman’s boat and exploring the hair markets of Shangdong province and making new Shanghai Deco objects. Fun looking back and seeing the projects and films shown together for the first time.
#studioswine #seachair #cancity #hairhighway #adventureproject #tokyo #designsight #design #designer #japan
Studio Swine (@studioswine ), founded by Alexander Groves and Azusa Murakami, creates immersive works that blend art, architecture, and environmental storytelling. Their installation ∞ Blue (Infinity Blue) pays tribute to cyanobacteria—Earth’s earliest oxygen producers—through a monumental ceramic sculpture. Using local Cornish materials and nature-inspired patterns, the work connects ancient ecological history with regional heritage in a visually striking, sensory experience.
#art
#artist
We are presenting two large-scale installations with @a.a.murakami in Milan this April. The Cave is an immersive experience that merges technology with ancient bone flutes, recreating sounds from 60,000 years ago. A flooded cavern bathed in crimson light, the installation features our own automata, evoking Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. In an age where reality is filtered through screens, its shadows feel more relevant than ever.
See you there!
KIA OPPOSITES UNITED: ECLIPSE OF PERCEPTIONS
Palazzo Della Permanente
via Turati 34, Milano
April 7 – 13, 2025
10AM – 6PM Monday
10AM – 7PM Tuesday–Sunday
Earlier this year we worked on Craft x Tech, a project that connected traditional Japanese crafts with contemporary designers. We were paired with Sendai Tansu which is a style of cabinet making that merges 3 master crafts, metal work, carpentry and lacquer, typically resulting in very elaborate, ornate works. We wanted to design a cabinet that had a geometric design with a bold minimal grid pattern made in black lacquer that could appear in a room like a simplified drawing, a graphic sculpture inspired by Japanese woodblock prints.
The design organises and conceals all the seams between the draws, all the lap joints of the wood, all the metal handles into the unifying grid rendered in urushi black lacquer. The pattern wraps the entire cabinet so it can be placed in the middle of the room as an object without a back and front.
‘Metabolism. I’ is currently displayed in Craft x Tech at the V&A Museum London.
CRAFT X TECH, a fusion of tradition and innovation, is currently being showcased at the V&A museum London. The cultural project is promoted by Hideki Yoshimoto, founder of the engineering design studio Tangent and curated by Maria Cristina Didero.
@tngnt.uk@vamuseum@craft.x.tech@mcdidero
#design #designexhibition #japan #japanesecraft #craftsmanship #woodwork #wood #moderndesign #japan #inspiredbyjapan #sendaitansu #ldf
Back from Hong Kong having opened our show ‘Floating World’ with @a.a.murakami at M+ museum. We have been working on this show for years and it’s unreal to see the bubble clouds come to life in the incredible brutalist architecture by Herzog & de Meuron.
Travelling with the kids we experienced the Disney hotel and I think I’ll stay every time we go to HK, so relaxing out of the city and soaking in the Disney IP. Something powerful about watching Mickey do Tai Chi, the muteness of the irl character version of the chatty little mouse feels like a monk that has taken a vow of silence and able to form a deeper connection through what is not said. Also there’s something about the big white gloved hands forming ‘Cloud Hands’ that makes the Qi; in invisible internal energy formed into a ball, all the more tangible. I could see the beautiful and most calming convergence of East and West and will propose to the UN, Davos and G20 that all the world leaders do Tai Chi with Mickey. And they mights as well show the Floating World installation too. #mickeymouse #taichimaster #worldpeace #floatingworld #cloudhands #disneyhongkong #installationart #aamurakami #ephemeraltech @mplusmuseum@unitednations
Me and my neighbours gathered in our spotless new white cotton garb and thin Tabi shoes to carry the Shrine. Feeling as if we were going out in pyjamas and socks we walked up country lanes to the starting point in the green hills thick with verdant growth reverberating with the rattle and shrill cacophony of insects. Trucks passed us carrying others standing packed in the back like soldiers being delivered to the front. The sound of drums and flutes grew and we took turns to carry the Mikoshi up the hill shaking it vigorously to ring its bells and see the phoenix feathers and gold quiver against the blue sky.
The troupe came down the valley to chants led by people walking backwards with megaphones somehow rousing joy from the sweaty task of bearing this heavy wooden load in the high heat of the day. Neighbours manned their hoses to cool us down and various food and drink stops were prepared by the farmers with vinegary sour sweet plum drinks and fresh ginger shoots to dip in cups of salty miso paste. The procession winded down the hot road onto the hot sand and into the warm sea. Jellyfish found out exposed parts and the sting connected us to nature. I thought to bear this load alone would be hell but in the company of such a happy group, so full of gusto it was joyous and life affirming.
When I was 11 I went to America for the first time. New York City, I was totally blown away. I went to the cathedral of art that is MOMA and brought the catalogue embellished with Starry Night and a MOMA mug, I said to the attendant clasping my book and mug that one day I want to be in this museum. He in that wonderfully sweet American way said something encouraging to this young twerp with my dad’s flat cap on backwards in a way that was cool in the 90’s. We had our work Can City acquired for their permanent collection some years ago and it’s been on show for a year in their ground floor gallery. We didn’t make it out to see it and it’s coming down on the 25th of this month but we feel pretty blessed that it came true. I still have the mug and the backward flat-cap has come back in fashion!
@themuseumofmodernart #brokennature #newyork #90s #studioswine #cancity #art #saopaulo
We stayed at a beautiful 11th century castle in Scotland. Every room had incredible interior decor and the walls adorned with portraits of the family who owned the castle over time. Felt the weight of history. #scotland #history #castle #familytrip #britishsummer
Craft x Tech Tohoku Project 2024
Sendai Tansu × Studio Swine
Stained Japanese Keyaki, black lacquer, metalwork.
'Metropolis. l'
The traditional and stately Sendai Tansu, originally crafted as a samurai or merchant chest, has acquired a completely new interpretation. It combines a graphical, flat pattern inspired by Ukiyo-e prints. Inspired by the dynamic graphic geometry and flatness of Japanese woodblock prints and 1960's Metabolism, this new Tansu design playfully combines the traditional crafts and the radical architectural movements of Japan in a systematic 'functional decoration'.
武家や商屋の箪笥として生まれた重厚な仙台箪笥の伝統様式に、浮世絵にインスピレーションを受けたグラフィカルでフラットな模様が融合された、全く新しい解釈による仙台筆筒。日本の木版画のダイナミックな幾何学模様と平面性、そして1960年代のメタボリズムにインスパイアされたこの新しい箪笥のデザインは、日本の伝統工芸と先鋭的な建築運動を、「機能的装飾」として遊び心たっぷりに融合させている。
@craft.x.tech curated by @mcdidero@jun6083
#craftxtech #craft #tech #design
#contemporarydesign #technology #traditionalcraft #craftandtechnology #japanesecraft
#japanesetradtionalcraft #japan #tokyo #tohoku #sendai #miyagi #sendaitansu
