Word: oka
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...shop and find a package that is not ugly or delusive or frustrating or wasteful, or all four. That is why the Japan Society's current exhibition in New York, "Tsutsumu-the Art of Japanese Packaging," should not be missed. Organized and chosen by the Tokyo designer Hideyuki Oka, it consists of 221 packages, ranging from sake bottles to wrappings for candied papaya. All the designs have a long craft history, and some are very old indeed: one type of wooden container, tied together with strips of bark and used for carrying the raw fish on vinegared rice known...
When mathematicians speak of the "elegance" of a proof, they do not mean decorative grace notes; they mean the kind of succinct, one-pointed blow that undercuts one's expectations of complexity. In that sense, what Oka calls "these utilitarian wrappings, these crystallizations of everyday wisdom" are elegant indeed. Problem: to pack one dried salt yellowtail in straw so that it can be unwrapped frugally and eaten over a period of time. It must keep up to six months, so some air must get to it but flies must not. The answer in Ishikawa prefecture is to sheathe...
...principle behind this kind of work, as Oka points out, is twofold. First, there is a traditional regard for the symbolism of the materials themselves. Thus, because paper was considered to embody a deity in ancient Japan, you could not cut it (a murder of the god). You could fold it without violation, however, and thus origami and its related art of paper packaging came into being. Second, the package is an act of obeisance to its recipient, rather than a flat invitation to consume. In the material on show at Japan House this idea is beautifully eloquent: the studied...