Sōetsu Yanagi (1889–1961)
Sōetsu Yanagi was the quiet heretic who declared war on speed. In the 1920s, alongside potters Shōji Hamada and Kanjirō Kawai, he founded the Mingei (“folk craft”) movement: an act of philosophical resistance that insisted usefulness, humility, and imperfection were the true teachers of beauty. He preached a gospel of anonymity. This episode asks how we create honest art in an age when visibility has replaced value, and speed itself has become a religion. What does it mean to make something that doesn’t scream for attention?
FOR MORE:
Mingeikan – Japan Folk Crafts Museum (Tokyo)
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