KŌSA

ー As an individual artist, what kind of monozukuri do you strive for?

Uchida：
Since I sell my products using my name, Kōichi Uchida, there is no anonymity, so I do feel a sense of self-accountability. Not in terms of other people, but rather, I feel I’ve learned to work while adhering to clear answers and attitudes within myself. I hear people say, “You do so many different things,” but with ceramics, my repertoire is actually very small. I only make a limited number of kinds of items like rice bowls and pots. It’s just that because I change things around, like switching the firing process between oxidation and reduction, and using different types of clay, the end products come out from the kiln differently. So it simply appears as if I do a wide range of things. It’s like if you see my pieces only at a certain point in time, they look unrelated to each other, but if you see them over a course of time, you would understand. This is the best I can do to explain it.

Uchida：
The original catalyst was that I was asked by the local government to be an advisor for a branding project for Banko ware. By that point, I had been living in Yokkaichi longer than anywhere else. Since it is very easy to acquire the necessary materials and tools here, I felt I had been benefiting a great deal from this place. Also, I like old things, so I go to flea markets and antique shows, and the things I find interesting and buy often tend to be Banko ware. After 20 years of collecting products as reference materials, I had quite an extensive collection. In conversations with people of the local government and in the industry, we started discussing how it’s a problem that we have no museums in the land of Banko ware that has a 300-year history. Even though I’d tell them, “If you’re going to build one, I’ll cooperate,” I saw very little progress. But I believed you could do it without spending too much money on it, and I knew that other countries had resource centers and museums that are small but solid. So I thought I could make something like that even if it’s privately run.

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ー The museum name contains the term “archive design.” What sort of meaning did you have for it?

Uchida：
I believe that by breaking down and understanding old things and historical materials, you can convert them to things that have relevance today. It’s sort of like looking at them not as current items, but instead as archives, and based not on their visual elements like the forms, but on the design background from which they were created. When we say “design,” we tend to understand it as new directionality, but I believe we can also discover design from the standpoint of archives. In planning for exhibitions, we narrow down our theme to three points, which are “color, person, and material.” We plan to hold a special exhibition twice a year, in the spring and fall, each with a focus on a particular format. The theme of our second exhibition, which will start coming April, will be “enamel.”

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ー Please talk about the appeal of Banko ware.

Uchida：
The region of Banko is close in proximity to both the sea and mountains. As the Tokai-do Road runs through here, and we have a trading port, it is a convenient location for trade. When a location is convenient, its mountains often get leveled, which takes away the soil that can be dug up. Unable to acquire the ingredients to make pottery, potters—out of desperation—switched directions toward industrial pottery. Today, more than 80% of all earthen pots in Japan are Banko ware. And other measures were taken as well. For example, when white clay was depleted, they used the local red clay rich in iron to make tea pots. By firing at low temperature to make the colors come out brighter, they also made novelty products for those who prefer primary colors and exported them. In this way, Banko ware has continued to be made by transforming negative elements into positive strengths. I think these things can prove useful for crafters not only of ceramics but other products as well.