Mitsuo Toyazaki

Mitsuo Toyazaki gave a fascinating lecture (with translation read by Lesley Millar) at the Sainsbury Centre on Sunday 27th January as part of the Cloth and Culture Now Conference.

Originally trained as a dyer Toyazaki has often produced installations that are fromed of multiples of an object that has been dyed in different hues.

The ancient Japanese Jomon culture is an area of great influence in Toyazaki's work that results in highly complex pattern formations. He began collecting small objects such as buttons (not found intraditional Janpanese clothing) after a huge earthquake distroyed many of the homes around him. the buttons are used to from pattern installations that are deliberately transient.

The changing of the seasons is represented in his installation for Cloth and Culture Now. The piece shows Maple leaves as they change colour in the autumn, the installation captures a fleeting moment in the ever changing colouration of the leaves. The transience and fragility of the moment would be lost if the buttons were fixed in place by sewing or glueing, left loose they can be swept away in an instance as are the leaves when they fall.