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May 05, 2024
 

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Mio Yamada

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Mio Yamada
A freelance arts and lifestyle editor and writer, Mio Yamada focuses on design, crafts and architecture. When she’s not visiting galleries and trade fairs, you'll find her taking photos of everything and being distracted by shiny objects. She's also surprisingly British.
For Mio Yamada's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 7, 2013
Edward Steichen's great American Dream
“I don't think that many people in Japan know who Edward Steichen is,” says curator Miki Tsukada in a surprisingly honest comment about visitors to the Setagaya Art Museum's current exhibition.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 21, 2013
The future of fabrics woven with the past
The textile work of Junichi Arai is renowned for its complexity and innovation. Often three-dimensional in nature, his fabrics appear as undulating landscapes of puckering, crumpling, puffs, pleats and protruding felted yarns. Many of them glimmer with metallic or translucent sheens, some seem understated in natural creams, browns and blacks, while others reveal woven patterns of fluid lines and swirls. As varied as they appear, however, they all share a simplicity that belies extremely complex manufacturing techniques.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Aug 24, 2012
Chips and Art Garden make art accessible to everyone
It's not easy for young artists to show their work to the public and get feedback, or for the public to find artworks that they can easily afford.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 9, 2012
From Comme des Garcons to Somarta, Japanese fashion excels at weaving past, present and future
In 1981, while Western designers focused on shoulder-padded power suits, bright colors, sharp stiletto heels and statement jewelry, Yohji Yamamoto and Comme des Garcons' Rei Kawakubo sent their models down the runway in defiant black, voluminously draped garments, accessorized with nothing but flat shoes. It was the Paris debut of both Japanese designers, and they utterly confused and stunned their peers. Yamamoto's garments were dubbed "crow-like" and "monastic," Kawakubo's "Hiroshima chic" and "post-atomic." And the critics loved it all.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 2, 2012
Christian Boltanski's mesmeric "No Man's Land" draws visitors to the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale 2012's new Satoyama Museum of Contemporary Art
Christian Boltanski's "No Man's Land" is both daunting and mesmerizing. It's difficult to take your eyes off the 20-ton mound of clothing, which at 9 meters tall dwarfs an accompanying crane that tosses on more T-shirts, trousers and dresses with a giant claw.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 2, 2012
Architect Andrew Burns and artist Brook Andrew introduce Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale's new Australia House
"Surely, post 3/11, post Global Financial Crisis, we need to make buildings and spaces that are simple and allow us to remember essential things," says Andrew Burns, the architect behind the new Australia House in Urada, Tokamachi City.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Japan Pulse
Jul 13, 2012
The Korean beauty secrets are out
Japanese women, keen to emulate their favorite K-pop idols and K-TV actresses, make a beeline for 'Made in Korea' cosmetics.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jul 10, 2012
Being in the doghouse is not always a bad thing
Joseph Kosuth, an American artist famous for conceptual, text-centric works, just put one of his good friends — Joni Waka — in the doghouse.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 3, 2012
Takeshi Kitano takes on a different beat
"I want you to have fun. It's the only aim of this exhibition," said Takeshi "Beat" Kitano when "Gosse de peintre" originally opened at Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris two years ago. For an artist, that's quite an unusual goal — but then Kitano is not your usual artist.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 29, 2012
The precious qualities of today's art jewelry
"The difference between art jewelry and a painting or a sculpture is that jewelry is closer to the heart — literally. Because you can wear it, it's actually even more intimate and personal than other artwork."
CULTURE / Art
Mar 29, 2012
The precious qualities of today's art jewelry
"The difference between art jewelry and a painting or a sculpture is that jewelry is closer to the heart — literally. Because you can wear it, it's actually even more intimate and personal than other artwork."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 17, 2011
'Irving Penn and Issey Miyake: Visual Dialogue'
21_21 Design Sight
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 20, 2011
"Good Design Exhibition 2011"
Design Hub, Tokyo Midtown Closes Nov. 13
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 6, 2011
"Japan's long-selling products"
P&P Gallery/Printing Museum, TokyoCloses Nov. 6
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 14, 2011
"Kokeshi Doll Exhibition"
CLASKA Gallery & Shop "Do" Closes July 31
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 29, 2011
ArtGig offers 'Dirty, dirty! Sex, sex!' — for free
When curator Shai Ohayon says he's organizing 12 hours of "dirty, dirty, sex, sex" in Shinjuku, he's not making a sordid offer.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 22, 2011
'Artists' Action For Japan'
Tokyo Midtown Atrium
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 25, 2011
Inside a construction site of an artist's mind
Tokyo-based Scottish artist Jack McLean's creepy-cute anthropomorphized planks of wood are weird enough on their own, but crammed together inside The Container, a new art space in Tokyo's Naka-Meguro district, they are even more unnerving. Huddled in corners, leaning against walls and hanging precariously from the ceiling of a space the size and shape of a shipping container, they stare wide-eyed and astonished — as if you've caught them by surprise, perhaps just as they emerge from their mundane-plank state to find themselves disfigured at the hands of humans.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 25, 2011
'Wing Shya: Female Trouble'
Gallery Speak For
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 7, 2011
Realizing the genius of Leonardo da Vinci
A temporary pavilion in Tokyo's Hibiya Park seems like an unlikely venue for showcasing the hallowed works of Leonardo da Vinci, but for this particular exhibition, the big top-like structure is appropriate. "Leonardo da Vinci: The Genius" is aimed straight at the general public. Designed, produced, branded and marketed by Grande Exhibitions, the company that is also behind the traveling exhibitions "Planet Shark," "Van Gogh Alive" and "Game On," "The Genius" is about edutainment — showing the great master to the general public in an accessible and entertaining way.
With eye on China, defense chiefs agree to bolster interoperability
From left: U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Australian defense chief Richard Marles, Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara and Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro hold a joint news conference in Honolulu on Thursday.
Harajuku strives to reclaim its former glory — and surpass it
Laforet Harajuku, which celebrated its 45th anniversary last year, has been a witness to the district's evolution over the years.
Biden calls ally Japan ‘xenophobic’ along with rivals China and Russia
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks in Syracuse, New York, on April 25.
Debate on constitutional revision at a standstill despite Kishida's pledges
With less than two months left before the conclusion of the current session of parliament, any possibility that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida can deliver constitutional reform before the end of his term as Liberal Democratic Party president in late September, as he has promised, appears remote.
Japan's May 1 intervention may have cost ¥3.66 trillion, BOJ data suggests
An electronic screen displays a graph showing Japanese yen exchange rates surging against the dollar amid signs of intervention by authorities, in Tokyo on Thursday.
Kishida sets sights on energy and climate in South America trip
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will use a policy speech in Sao Paulo to set out his vision for ties between Japan and South America, almost 10 years after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe advocated for stronger ties between the two in the same city.
Yellow sand allergy: A health issue made worse by climate change
A screenshot of the Meteorological Agency's satellite image of clouds and yellow sand (in pink) on Sunday.
Climate change, chalky grains and the risks for Japan’s rice farmers
A farmer plants seedlings in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture. Japan’s self sufficiency rate for rice is nearly 100%, compared with 38% for food overall, on a calorie basis.
Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
Performers play a traditional drum unique to Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the prefectural capital of Kanazawa on March 16 to mark the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture.
Theaster Gates’ ambitious ‘Afro-Mingei’ brings Black Chicago to Tokyo
Theaster Gates' “A Heavenly Chord” lines up church pews before seven speakers and a Hammond B3 organ, a type of electric organ prevalent in Black American churches.

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