Reiko Setsuda, curator of Le Forum exhibition space in Tokyo, was instrumental in transposing the Skills Academy to Japan. As in France, each edition of the Academy centres on a universal material explored through practical workshops, talks, visits and the publication of a reference work.
The First Edition of the Skills Academy in Japan: Wood
In 2021, the publication of the Japanese version of Savoir & Faire – Wood by Kodansha Sensho Metier marked the launch of the first edition of the Skills Academy in Japan. This book brings together a selection of texts translated from the French edition, alongside new articles by nine Japanese authors. While the publication draws on a distinctly French encyclopedic format, the Japanese edition of the Academy’s programme initially differed from the European original in that it addressed first and foremost a young audience through a pedagogical model that marked a break with the local, academic approach. Subsequent editions integrated other age groups, taking on an intergenerational dimension.
The programme took place over two seasons. In the spring of 2022, the first workshop, over several sessions, invited participants to engage with wood from a number of angles – sculptural or musical properties, multisensory approaches, the tradition of bonsai, etc. – and included in-situ sessions in forests. The programme reflected the essential role of wood in Japan’s everyday life and art of living.
In the autumn of 2022, a second workshop invited participants to work with wood at the Geidai University of Arts in Tokyo. Two round tables open to the public at the Institut Français in Tokyo provided French and Japanese designers with an opportunity to compare their practices in design and the use of wood in music. This double thematic framework produced fruitful and pertinent exchanges that confirmed the rich seam of knowledge that can emerge from a comparative Franco-Japanese perspective.
The Second Edition of the Skills Academy in Japan: Earth
In 2023, a new edition of the Skills Academy in Japan was marked by the publication of Savoir & Faire – Clay by Iwanami Shoten Editions. Eight articles translated from the French edition are accompanied here by seven texts and interviews with researchers and craftspeople from across Japan. The edition also features the work of two photographers who unfold their unique perspectives on clay through portfolios: one dedicated to landscapes and the other to a ceramics studio. In order to share this new publication with as wide an audience as possible, on 15 December 2023 the Geidai Tokyo University of the Arts hosted an evening of talks that approached this elemental material from a range of perspectives.
Imagined as a transversal initiative and an integral part of the Foundation’s actions in Japan, the Skills Academy also extends to Le Forum, the Foundation’s exhibition space in Tokyo, where it enters into resonance with the artistic programme devised by curator Reiko Setsuda. In 2023, the exhibition "Enamel and Body/Ceramics" brought together a diverse range of works to offer a contemporary artistic counterpoint to the Academy, featuring a host of different ceramics practices by French and Japanese artists.
Following an open call for applications, about seventy teenagers were selected to participate in a week-long series of workshops in March 2024 led by different professionals (an architect, a poet, a chef, an entomologist, a choreographer, an anthropologist and others) in order to offer a broad and diverse range of approaches to earth in its many forms, from the raw material to the planet itself. A new exhibition, “Open Class”, dedicated to earth will be take place in summer 2024, and will centre on a collaborative work, a temporary architecture that will return to the earth once more after the project draws to a close. The year will end with a new session of workshops and roundtables organised with the Geidai Tokyo University of the Arts in November 2024.
