This work is part of the per­ma­nent col­lec­tion at the New York Museum of Mod­ern Art

Back­ground

When I was attend­ing Royal  Col­lege of Art in Lon­don, I wanted to cre­ate some­thing to express my Japan­ese iden­tity, since every­one else around me were for­eign­ers.    As  find­ing beauty in a grain of wood, or the tex­ture of straw knit san­dals,  the mate­r­ial of any prod­uct is very impor­tant for Japan­ese.  I have that kind of feel­ings for mate­ri­als too.

Func­tion

It’s a salt and pep­per dispensor.

You can see the white salt and black pep­per shin­ing through slightly. Crack them open by try­ing to fold them in the mid­dle.   Because they are made of rice paste, they melt to water at once when you throw them away.   A bird can eat one, and it wouldn’t do him any harm.

Pro­duc­tion

I decided to use  rice paste for this, because rice absorbs moisture.