MUZZLES FOR CATTLE
My new work
WARAZAN: JAPANESE DATA STORAGE
With special knotted cords, data were stored until the 20th century on the Japanese Ryukyu Islands. With rice straw, nodes were arranged according to a certain system and represent quantities in the decimal system. This made it easy to record information without knowing the characters.A similar method is also known by the Inca Empire. There, the cords (Quipu) were used for records in the administration, with which religious, chronological and statistical data were stored. For bookkeeping, especially the understanding of the individual calculation steps and to make sense for the intermediate results.Artefact from Okinawa, 1930
Suquamish basketmaker, Ed Carriere explaining and performing the lost art of clam basketmaking.
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A non-traditional woven sculpture teaching method by Artist Nathalie Miebach based on data collected.
THE ANCESTRAL FOOD OF CHINA
“One layer of salt, one layer of fish.All fish overlap and intertwine with each other.According to tradition, fish heads are placed counterclockwise.This is to show respect to customers.”
Watch the docuseries
THE HUNTER-GATHERER CULTURE
The Matagi tribes are traditional winter hunters of the Tōhoku region of northern Japan. Because of the geographical conditions, the tribes had to hunt for survival. Their lifes are sustained through hunting, firing fields, and making wooden and basketry objects.
With the introduction of guns in the 20th century, the need for group hunting for bear has diminished, leading to a decline in Matagi culture.
These muzzles would be fitted to cattle to prevent grazing when crossing fields with crops. The bentwood model is a particularly well made and pleasing object and probably less irritating for the cow or bull to wear than the rope one.
Explore book: The Hard Life by Jasper Morrison
WORKING WITH REDUCTION
Japanese chopstick restsSource: Takayuki Shimizu
THE MESOPOTAMIAN MARSHES OF IRAQ
The photos are a fascinating account of the lives of indigenous ‘Marsh Arabs’, whose lives in the marshes of Iraq were devastated by large scale draining of their homeland by Saddam Hussein in the 1990s. After the fall of the regime the arid marshes were re-flooded when people broke through the embankments holding back the water. The return of the plants, animals and community to this unique landscape speaks of the resilience of people and environment to respond and be restored after ecological destruction and crisis.
First constructed in the marshes of what is now southern Iraq over 5,000 years ago, the ‘mudhif‘, the huge parabolic arched construction, is a unique local meeting place constructed entirely of reeds, straw and other natural materials.
KENYAH ANCESTRAL MUSIC
The sape' is a traditional lute of the Orang Ulu. These indigenous ethnic are mainly the “Kayan” and “Kenyah” groups who settle near the rivers of Central Borneo. They are known for their traditional musical instrument, jatung utang (wooden xylophone), sape' (a type of guitar), sape' bio (single stringed bass), lutong (a four- to six-string bamboo tube zither) and keringut (nose flute).
Listen to Matthew Ngau Jau
WOVEN BAMBOO HOUSE — TRADITIONAL GREEN BUILDING
We study material folk-cultures not to know the future but to widen our horizons, to understand that our present situation is neither natural nor inevitable, and that we consequently have many more possibilities before us than we imagine.
The film was captured in Ethiopia by Gordon Clarke of the Institute of Nomadic Architecture.Link
JAPANESE FOLK CULTURE
Extremely fascinating functional artifact:Insect cage made in cycad leaf
via aguni archive
ON WEAVING A BASKET
“The world of our experience is, indeed, continually and endlessly coming into being around us as we weave. If it has a surface, it is like the surface of the basket: it has no ‘inside’ or ‘outside’. Mind is not above, nor nature below; rather, if we ask where mind is, it is in the weave of the surface itself. And it is within this weave that our projects of making, whatever they may be, are formulated and come to fruition. Only if we are capable of weaving, only then can we make.” — Tim Ingold
Listen to the sounds:The Growth of Artifacts by Yannick Dauby
