nana’s green tea YOKOHAMA JOINUS
Kanagawa, Japan / 2012

“Suibokuga”(painting in India ink)

Nanaha Corporation is a company that introduces “a new form of Japan” to the world through”matcha” (powdered green tea). They arrange high grade matchas in modern style and provide them as a menu such as matcha latte. And their intention is to make the space into a”contemporary style tea room”, not a “Japanese style tea room”.

The mental state of sado “tea ceremony” is sometimes called the “wabi-sabi”. The beauty sense of “wabi-sabi” is an austere refinement with quiet simplicity. In other words it is a “simple but artistic atmosphere that has denied color”.

Suibokuga is a picture written without color. It is written just with the light and shade of the Indian ink or the strength of a brushstroke, creating an “ambiguity without color”that is neat, clean and simple. People who see it is able to imagine limitless beauty. This kind of “ambiguity without color” is exactly the concept of “wabi-sabi”.

Therefore, for nana’s green tea Yokohama Joinus branch, I have expressed the process of a contemporary tea room transforming into a world of wabi-sabi” (suibokuga).

What I actually did was change the colors of bamboos that are randomly placed in the shop from green to black”the world of suibokuga”. So the customers walk through the world of suibokuga when they are standing and come back to the contemporary tea room when they sit down.

Photos by Keisuke Miyamoto

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