Tomoko Konoike has been conducting her Storytelling Table Runner project since 2014. The project consists of three stages: gathering personal stories of people whom Konoike meets while travelling; Konoike drawing sketches based on the stories; and participants sewing table mats based on her sketches.

STITCHING WONDER

Storytelling Table Runner is a long running project that artist Tomoko Konoike has been conducting since 2014.

The project consists of three stages: gathering personal stories of people whom Konoike meets while travelling; Konoike drawing sketches based on the stories; and participants sewing table mats based on her sketches.

With Yuko Shoji, a handicraft expert in Akita, and Mayako Murai, a fairy-tale researcher, as the main travel companions, Storytelling Table Runner has beenStorytelling Table Runner has been unfolding with people the artist met in Akita, Aomori, the Noto Peninsula, Oshima Island (a former leprosy colony), Tasmania, and Finland.

In Sydney, Konoike is going to try a new format of cushions, an intimate object she sees as occupying a modest but important place in people’s everyday lives. Supported by the Australia-Japan Foundation Grant, this workshop will open a new chapter in this unique art project, connecting people in the two countries through storytelling and handicraft.

Workshop I will be followed by Workshop II, which will take place at Kanagawa University, Yokohama, and online in November 2022.

STITCHING WONDER

July 30, 2022 (Saturday)
6-8pm

The Japan Foundation, Sydney
Level 4, Central Park
28 Broadway, Chippendale NSW 2008

 
 
 

Join Tomoko Konoike and Mayako Murai for an insight into the planning and making of the Storytelling Cushions.

For this workshop, audience members will be able to join in person and online to watch as the artist and a group of participants discuss what the Storytelling Table Runner means to them, and how this will influence the new Storytelling Cushion project as it unfurls.

Audience members will be able to participate as they are invited to share their own experiences and stories at the end of the session.

This event will be in English and Japanese with sequential interpretation by our interpreter-curator Naoko Mabon.

The Japan Foundation gallery will be open for extended hours with drinks available so that you can explore the Storymakers in Contemprory Japanese Art exhibition.

Admission:

In person - free - no need to register.
Booking required for online participation via zoom. Register at Eventbrite or use the button below to join the Festival and gain access to more events throughout 2022.

Related Events

discover these exciting Japan Foundation Sydney Events and more:

Tomoko Konoike

Tomoko Kōnoike (b. 1960, Akita) was involved in the planning and design of toys, sundries, and furniture, and these activities have carried over into the present day after graduating from the Department of Painting (Japanese Painting) at Tokyo University of the Arts, she Even as she employs several kinds of media—animation, illustrated books, painting, sculpture, songs, photography, handcrafts, or fairy tales—she has participated in many interdisciplinary sessions with people in other fields, created site-specific works that incorporate descriptions of a region’s climate and terrain, and continued to address primordial questions about art. Her major exhibitions include Jam Session: Ishibashi Foundation Collection x Tomoko Konoike Tomoko Konoike FLIP (ARTIZON MUSEUM, Tokyo, 2020), and Inter-Traveller (Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo, 2009). Her major travelling exhibition The Birth of Seeing will open at Takamatsu Art Museum, Kagawa, in July 2022.