Kyoto Culture Quest with Ian Grant
Ian Grant presents a fascinating studio tour with the inimitable Kyoko Ibe. Ibe walks us through her artistric processes of papermaking in her Kyoto studio, which she pioneered in the 1960s.
Kyoko Ibe started her artistic creation using handmade paper at a time when the material was used exclusively for traditional Japanese arts and crafts. After completing a Masters degree at the Kyoto Institute of Technology in 1967, Ibe continued working with paper and has been invited to more than twenty countries for exhibitions, workshops, lectures, teaching, and as a jury member. Her work pushes the limits of paper, transforming a craft into an art form. She also creates large scale installations, a wide range of interior products, stage sets, and costumes. Ibe's radically new approach to paper combines a respect for tradition with technological experimentation. She has collaborated with many foreign theater groups, and received an Isadora Duncun Visual Design Award for the stage set of Tandy Beal Company in 1987. She made stage and costume for “Recycling; Washitales”, directed by Elise Thoron, which was world premiered in Krannert Center for Performing Arts in Illinois University in 2011 and then traveled to LACMA Being theater. In 2016, “Recycling Washitales” was performed in Asia Society Theater. She had a solo exhibition in Stockton University Gallery in 2017 where Washitales was performed in the gallery. She has received many awards, nationally and internationally: and was selected to be a special advisor for the Agency of Cultural Affairs of Japan in 2009. She received the Kyoto City Cultural Merit Laureate Award in 2019.
