HKDI Gallery

A series of photos of a red flag standing on the ocean floor dancing along to the current against a backdrop of the ocean blue. The other is a 2000 x 1250mm size cloth portrayed like a cloud against the blue sky. These two pieces are one of Fujiwara’s earliest expressions. The roots of his creative work inspired by a fascination with colour, the environment, and fabric can be seen here in these works created as a student.  

Rusted iron bars are situated opposite recycled iron bars. A single piece of cloth is hung between the bars to create a soft interruption in the heavy cycle of iron. Iron, a contrasting material to fabric was chosen for this creation, which is a device that generates new meaning and value. This installation has been recreated for the first time in 30 years for this exhibition.  

鏽蝕的鐵棒和循環再生鐵棒相向放置。一塊薄布懸掛其間，輕柔地介入在鐵的厚重循環間。此裝置作品選擇了與織物強烈對比的材料——鐵，作為衍生新意義和價值的工具。為了是次展覽，本裝置作品於30年後首次被重新製作。 

Guerilla art, a 1400mm diameter and 2400mm tall cylinder made from welded iron, set up in the middle of a public road in front of Tokyo Station in the early morning hours. The following year, while studying in Beijing, Fujiwara created an object in nearly the same size, this time using fiber material woven in Macrame (weaving method), and set this up in multiple locations throughout Beijing including in front of the Beijing Central Station. This work opened Fujiwara’s eyes to the potential of textiles as a material that adapts to environmental changes and creates new meaning.  

For his graduation project, Fujiwara developed a gender free baseball glove. The glove, based on extensive research on the structure of the glove, physiological anatomy of the finger, and materials used, succeeded in elevating its production efficiency by simplifying the pattern from the standard ten parts down to two. He also chose as his material, a textile adopted by NASA’s Mirage project for weight saving and also proposed colourful prints, a rarity for baseball gloves in those times. The design approach to reinvent structure, aggregate functions, and minimise production processes would later lead to his work with A-POC.  

From 2013, Fujiwara joined in design direction at MUJI, a global brand of lifestyle products. He developed materials and carried out product planning as director of “MUJI TO GO”, a product line dedicated to a life of travel.  

The Itsumo no Moshimo emergency kit released in 2020, is a product that proposes disaster preparedness in daily life. Fujiwara joined as a team member throughout the entire project from ideation to product creation.  

Tokiwa Phytochemical is a global expert of phytochemistry with deep insight of extraction, separation, and refinement of plant-derived ingredients. Approached by the company’s president, Fujiwara jointly developed and produced seasoning added with essences extracted from plants and also directed its branding and package design. This project further bolstered his idea of “bringing mother nature to urban spaces.”

Just like in China and Korea, roasted sweet potatoes are a favorite Japanese snack. “Imoya Kaneki” is a brand by Tokyo Food Co., Ltd., a company based in Sano, Tochigi Prefecture that produces and sells domestic vegetables and processed foods. In addition to roasted sweet potatoes, the brand sells dried sweet potatoes, sweet potato chips, and sweet potato pudding online and in a directly operated shop in Sano City. Fujiwara conducted the branding and package design on request from the president who discovered Fujiwara’s work with VEGGIE HERB. 

Fujiwara launched the creative unit propellaheart in 2018 on request to carry out branding for a landscaping and fresh flower wholesale & retail company. propellaheart produces spaces through traditional fresh flower arrangements as well as floral installations incorporated with scientific insight and utilizing digital devices. The unit brings elements of nature in the form of flowers into urban spaces based on the concept of “flowers are a device of the heart.”  

In 2008, Fujiwara, along with the president of Camper, the shoe brand, gave a lecture together on request from the Alvar Aalto Foundation in Finland. Fujiwara designed a bag made from paper materials after he was inspired by the brand, which takes its name from the word “farmer” in the local language of Mallorca Island in Spain, for its design concepts inspired by the Mediterranean and its innovative product development. He created sketches imagining the climate of Mallorca Island when designing the socks. 

Kamakura is a historic city with a history of more than 800 years as well as a tourist destination speckled with temples and shrines and surrounded by mountain and sea. However, the long-lived local shopping district was failing to draw customers as it struggled to keep up with modernization of commercial practices and DX that comes with free competition. Fujiwara was asked to carry out branding for a project launched by an association of six shopping districts and groups and designed Mizutama (polka-dot) shop curtains and flags to fly proudly in front of shops. Each of the blue dots, colour hunted from the ocean, represents the local people and businesses.  

The Enoshima Electric Railway is a tram that connects Fujisawa City with Kamakura in Kanagawa Prefecture and is affectionately referred to as “Enoden” by the public. Fujiwara was commissioned with the façade design of the tram cars and reimagined the Enoden as a media that tells about the beautiful scenery and local culture found along the tram line. The colours of nature found on the Enoden Line were colour hunted over several years and the cars with 17 colours arranged in a stripe design, carried passengers until January-end 2021.   

Situated about one hour from Tokyo by train or car, the city of Miura in southern Kanagawa prefecture was facing the issue of population decline and many of the local farmers grappled with a sense of risk. An encounter with a business owner singlehandedly challenging to create a way of agriculture of the future, led to a collaboration with Hitachi, Japan’s leading electronics manufacturer, in a project that contributes to the local economy. Original cashless payment devices were set up at unmanned vegetable stations as an experiment in creating communication between the farmer and the customer.  

This project coins the word “koya” meaning “hut” in Japanese with “art” and is joined by farmers, universities, high schools and corporations in a collaboration to build stands in Kanagawa and Chiba prefecture to sell vegetables. Fujiwara joined as an artist and continues to build original “yasainokyokai” stands. This project, which resembles Joseph Beuy’s concept of social sculptures, leverages art as a solution to community issues. 

Colour-Hunting is Fujiwara’s method of design. He “hunts” for colour by observing the colours before his very eyes, mixing watercolours to create a colour chip, and comparing the chip with the actual colour. Nineteen case examples created in collaboration with artists and educational organisations using this method of creating colour by hand, were introduced at the Tokyo design venue 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT to present the new possibilities of colour.  

A project that linked researchers and employees of the Shiseido Research Center (currently Shiseido Global Innovation Center), the R&D headquarters of leading cosmetics manufacturer Shiseido, with creators and corporations/organisations from different walks of life to explore the possibilities of new value creation and introduce the outcome to the public in the form of an exhibition. Fujiwara steered this project, including more than 20 engagements throughout the year, successfully provided the creative direction as well as coaching for project participants and direction of the venue design.

A project joined by multiple universities, research institutions, and private companies to explore the possibilities of product making of tomorrow. As the two words “speed” and “flat” represent, people and information are connected on an open platform to promote quick action, while the outputs of the research on the future prospects of design are introduced to the public.  

Rusted iron bars are situated opposite recycled iron bars. A single piece of cloth is hung between the bars to create a soft interruption in the heavy cycle of iron. Iron, a contrasting material to fabric was chosen for this creation, which is a device that generates new meaning and value. This installation has been recreated for the first time in 30 years for this exhibition. 

What if there were glasses that were the same colour as your facial skin? By perceiving eyeglasses as second skin, we could uncover new possibilities like glasses that make skin look better or perhaps glasses as makeup. Fujiwara, inspired by Shiseido’s skin colour research, challenged to create skin-coloured glasses that fuse design with science. He worked with eyewear brand JINS to take clear frames, print them with a checker pattern based on a chip colour-hunted from the model’s skin, and create an eyeglass frame that adds colour to the cheeks through light.

Two Shiseido researchers touched real babies to assess and quantify the feel of their skin and proceeded to work with Mitsui Chemicals, a researcher of functional resin material, to develop a new ultra-soft polyurethane material. Fujiwara used colours hunted from baby skin to create earphone pads while Foster Electric Company produced the earphones. Students at Hiko Mizuno College of Jewelry proceeded to design the earphones as accessories. Then, students at the Hong Kong Design Institute styled (makeup, hair, costume) the models wearing the earphones.

Post-Hard Core / Risa Suzuki

Joint / Ryo Ogawa

Speedy earphones / Sou Inoue

Ear shutter / Miki Maeda

Cotton bud / Mito Okuda

Mizuhiki / Sanae Kitamura

Bolt from the blue / Akiko Watanabe

My ear / Manami Matsuda

Canal necklace / Saki Tamiya

Organ earphone / Yasuyo Hida

I’m feeling… / Ayaka Miwa

C. Stewart / Ayumi Yamanaka

Contact liner / Marin Sekine

Myself yourself / Yuhmi Konaka

2012, Fujiwara set out to the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. The purpose is to hunt the colours of lions that gather to hunt the herds of gnu that travel 1500 kilometers to the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. Spanish brand Camper then created shoes from the fabrics that were dyed in the hunted colours. In this exhibition, Gnu Shoes have been created through a similar process, mounted on mobile robots powered by sensor programming and are chased by Lion Shoes across a table that is the red colour hunted from the soil of Maasai land.

In designing the cars of the Enoshima Electric Railway, Fujiwara started from colour hunting in nature, specifically the colours of plants on Enoshima, a small island that sits off the Shonan coast. From fresh greens to dead leaves, the colours hunted from countless leaves came together to create a range of hues in a single composition, turned into a stripe pattern of 17 Enoshima colours worn by the tram cars.

The source of all colour can be traced back to something that is always above us, the sky. Fujiwara started colour hunting the sky in 2011 when Japan was hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake. No matter what happens, there is always only one sky and he started from hunting colours from the morning sky. Even on business trips, Fujiwara always carries around his watercolours to hunt its colours as much as possible. Sky colour chips continue to multiply to this day.

Dai Fujiwara imagined the future of garbage and a future with fewer animals. Will garments be made solely from chemically synthetic materials? Will it be possible to make garments from garbage? In search of answers, Fujiwara headed to the plains of Mongolia and the streets of New York and Tokyo. In Mongolia, he used a handheld vacuum cleaner to gather hairs dropped by yaks, sheep, cashmere goats, and goats and spun it into yarn. Efficiency of the gathering process was improved by using a drone which detected the location of fallen hairs in the plains and sending this information back to a pair of goggles. Likewise, on the streets of New York and Tokyo, he gathered garbage, cleaned it, and handspun them into a grey yarn. The exhibition introduces a video of this process that can be described as gleaning of the future, along with the eight sweaters that were created from the yarn.

French painter Henri Matisse, in his later years, used a bamboo stick with a charcoal taped to its end to paint a study for the mural of the Rosary Chapel in Vence. Fujiwara defined this stick as a painting device and started creating a piece of work that updated Matisse’s method. A drone, programmed with the location of landing, was lifted into air mounted with drawing mediums like specially mixed hot wax and ink, and navigated to draw patterns by dropping the materials onto a fabric set up at the landing location. The polka dot made by applying ink and then undergoing a traditional dying method called discharge printing, was used to create garments for six mannequins. This is an ongoing experiment to create works by operating robots instead of using one’s hands. The latest work takes the image of Matisse’s work stored in Fujiwara’s memory and re-creates the work by operating drones by a head gear.

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