Tribewanted: Vorovoro

In advance of my run for April chief, I thought I’d share a bit about the Zaishu Project, which I have been tracking for a few years now.

There was recently a great piece about these multi-use sustainably built pieces of functional art:

“Zaishu history started in 16th Century Japan where masterless, nomadic Samurai required portable possessions that were flexible in their uses, such as a folding seat that could be used as a table and for storage. The word Zaishu evolved from the Japanese word ‘zaisu’, a low seat used on Tatami mats.

The Zaishu is a portable, simplified Zen structure for generic, low to the ground use. Its construction is indebted to Japanese traditions of respecting the texture of natural materials and using no nails or glue. Its subtle visual detail of combining straight lines and broad curves has been translated from a Kimono that was placed flat on the floor.

Based on a program of participation, creativity, responsibility and evolution the Zaishu Project is an international collaborative event, recording patterns, designs and cultural texture from around the world on sheets of plantation grown veneer. This visual information ‘artwork’ is then cut by laser into smaller components that slot together without nails, screws or glue to create a small portable seat / table / box called a Zaishu.”

the rest of the write-up can be found here:

http://www.urbanboheme.com.au/directory/features/article.php?cat_id=12&id=24&ubcity_id=1

and, of course, the best place to look at all the amazing work the Zaishu folks are doing is to check out their website:

http://www.zaishu.com