The Kiryu area has flourished as a textile region with a rich history of inheriting and passing down the skills of the textile industry. In the post-war era, the ‘Sukajan,’ a Japanese-made Western-style jacket, emerged as a souvenir for American soldiers, a product of the nameless craftsmen in Kiryu who, in a time when the concept of designers didn’t exist, utilized local sewing techniques to create a uniquely Japanese-Western fusion garment. Ishiuchi Miyako, who was born in Kiryu, raised in Yokosuka, and returned to Kiryu, embarked on this endeavor after she used the techniques of her hometown Kiryu to transform a cherished kimono left by her mother into a Sukajan.
Explore the personal history of Ishiuchi Miyako, intimately connected to the town of Kiryu, through her individual narrative, memories reflected in kimonos and obis, and the Kiryu Sukajan – a part of Japan’s post-war history. The ‘Kirijan,’ born from the intersection of these diverse trajectories, will be on display and available for purchase at A&S’s Gallery Space WHITE BOX starting January 27th (Saturday). Custom orders using your own kimonos and obis are also welcomed. We invite you to join us and discover this unique fusion.
〈Haoru Kiryu representative in-store schedule〉
On January 27th, 28th and 29th and February 3rd and 4th, a Haoru Kiryu representative will be available for consultations regarding custom-made ‘Kirijan’ orders. Please bring your own kimonos and obis.
PROFILE
Ishiuchi Miyako
Ishiuchi Miyako was born in Gunma Prefecture and grew up in the city of Yokosuka in Kanagawa Prefecture. In 1979, she won the 4th Kimura Ihei Award for her work Apartment. In 2005, she represented Japan at the Venice Biennale with her series Mother, for which she photographed items inherited from her late Mother’s. In 2007, she began her internationally-renowned series ひろしま/hiroshima, for which she photographs belongings of Atom bomb victims and is ongoing.
In 2013, she received the Japanese Medal of Honor with purple ribbon, the Hasselblad Award (known as the ‘Nobel prize for photography’) in 2014, and in 2022 the Asahi Prize.
Recent exhibitions include the solo shows Ishiuchi Miyako: Postwar Shadows (J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2015), Grain and Image (Yokohama Museum of Art, 2017), Seen and Unseen -Tracing Photography(Otani Memorial Art Museum, Nishinomiya, 2021) ,Ishiuchi Miyako (Each Modern, Taiwan, 2022), Ishiuchi Miyako (Stills, Edinburgh, UK, 2022), and group show Ishiuchi Miyako Exhibition-The Story of Two Women: Miyako and Chihiro(Chihiro Art Museum, Tokyo 2019), Before/After(Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, 2023). She will have a solo exhibition at Okawa Museum in Kiryu on August of 2024. Her photobook Frida Love and Pain (Iwanamishoten, 2016) and Moving Away (Sokyusha, 2021) was published. Ishiuchi’s works are part of the permanent collections of Tokyo’s National Museum of Modern Art, the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, the Yokohama Museum of Art, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and Tate Modern.
