Because nature is not my material. The city is my material. I live in Shinjuku. I see plastic banners, acoustic ceiling tiles, the mesh of a construction fence. Synthetic fibers are the skin of modern life.
My father was an architect. I grew up looking at blueprints, not fashion magazines. To me, thread is just a line that forgot to be straight. When you weave enough of those lines, you get a plane. When you fold that plane, you get a room. Textiles are the softest form of architecture. rie tachikawa interview
(Laughs) That is very true. I was never interested in the body as a thing to be wrapped. I am interested in the negative space —the air between the body and the room. Most textile artists ask, "How does this feel on the skin?" I ask, "How does this define the air around the skin?" Because nature is not my material
The "violence" you see is the tension between the soft and the rigid. The felt wants to lay flat; the copper wants to spring back. That struggle is the art. In the end, the pieces looked like topographical maps of an earthquake. I think that is the truest map of Tokyo: a city always trying to hold itself together while the ground moves. I see plastic banners, acoustic ceiling tiles, the