Revitalizing Traditional Japanese Crafts
for the 21st Century

JapanCraft21 has been created to reverse the rapid decline of traditional Japanese crafts. In order to expediently leverage our resources, we are taking bold and audacious action by launching a series of Japan Traditional Craft Revitalization Contests, each designed to revive a traditional Japanese craft so that it flourishes in the 21st century. Each contest will select an exceptional individual with an outstanding idea, talent, track record and passion, and provide him/her with a broad and significant support package.

Our first contest took place in the spring of 2021 and provided the winner with both ¥5,000,000 ($50,000) of targeted funding toward achieving their vision as well as the active support of a mentor group of experts in fields such as business, design, product development, and marketing. We are greatly honored that the Asia Society (Japan Center), a highly respected international cultural institution, is joining us as co-sponsors of these contests.

Japan’s craft culture is based on knowledge and precision skills honed over centuries, earning it a reputation for producing artisanal works and goods which rank among the world’s finest. In recent years, however, the craft world here has been deteriorating at an alarming rate. For example, very inexpensive, simple versions of kimono requiring minimal skill level are flooding in from offshore so that true masterworks by local weavers, dyers and embroiderers are struggling to compete; sales of lacquer-ware are plummeting; very few young people are capable of replacing the scores of now-retiring Japanese bamboo basket artists; wood joinery is no longer taught to young carpenters. The list goes on and on. Though tens of thousands of master crafts people still function, most are at or past retirement age and young people are not taking over. Also disappearing are a large number of craft support specialists such as unique tool makers, dye blenders, brush makers, stencil cutters, etc., who form a highly interdependent network in the craft community.

During this critical time, JapanCraft21 first chose to focus on high-level wood joinery. Eighty years ago, there were 100,000 exquisite wooden machiya townhouses in Kyoto. Today, only 40,000 remain, with more disappearing every year. In 2019 we helped establish a small school to train working carpenters while providing them with scholarships. We recently graduated our first class of 6—the first generation of young carpenters in decades, who are capable of building a wooden house entirely without nails. We are currently running a wood joinery course as well as a course for young plasterers in a Japanese bamboo mud wall construction course. A course in advanced garden building is scheduled to begin in April.

The crafts of Japan are an international treasure that have enriched and inspired people around the world for hundreds of years. This heritage belongs to all of us. If being a pro-active part of the Japanese Craft Community appeals to you, then please join us. Together we can take meaningful, important, immediate action to help preserve these beautiful crafts before they disappear from our global culture.