Outi Martikainen x Kakuo Kaji / BUAISOU
Workshop photographs by Kyoko Nishimoto / BUAISOU
“The artworks of the series Unordinary Situations were created in collaboration with the Japanese company Buaisou_i during my participation in their residency program in 2023, as well as in subsequent work at the beginning of 2024. For the materials, I used unbleached polyester and linen yarn, woven using a “white on white” digital jacquard weaving technique. The visual structure of the pieces is shaped by the dyeing process, which utilizes traditional Japanese natural indigo, in collaboration with the company’s founder, Kakuo Kaji, in Tokushima.”
Kakuo Kaji of BUAISOU dyeing the artworks in Japan.
“The themes of the works are connected to a time when I frequently had vivid dreams. In these nocturnal scenes, events and characters appear suddenly, unpredictably, and in contrast to everyday life. One of the themes involved images of football players I collected from newspapers. The highly dance-like poses of the players, frozen in mid-air, caught my interest. These images capture events in millisecond-long pauses. I then imagined the figures landing somewhere else in the next millisecond. In three other works in the exhibition, which utilize the katazome resist-dyeing technique, I have returned to landscapes that exist in the depths of my mind and to which I always return.”
The two smaller pieces, Unordinary Situations VII & VIII, being finalised by Kakuo Kaji in these images, were made using a slightly different technique.
“Firstly, using digital jaquard weaving, I have woven the bases, which have two different patterns in addition to the base image. Before the dyeing, a rice paste has been applied in a specific design; this technique is called katazome. The rice paste hinders the colour from fastening onto the areas covered in it. Once the paste has dried, the pieces can be dyed, which happens by submerging the fabric for a few minutes in a lukewarm colour bath, after which it is lifted out in order to oxidise. This is repeated until the desired colour intensity is achieved. After this several rinses are made, and lastly, the fabrics are dipped into hot water in order to remove the rice paste.” – Outi Martikainen
