Kintsugi Demonstration: Naoko Fukumaru

*Please note that this event was rescheduled from Sunday, April 3, 2022.

Yoko Ono’s MEND PIECE (1966) takes inspiration from Kintsugi, a 500-year-old traditional Japanese method of restoring ceramics with Urushi natural lacquer dusted with powdered gold. Kintsugi highlights restorations instead of hiding them and celebrates beauty in imperfection and impermanence.

The Vancouver Art Gallery invites Naoko Fukumaru, a local Kintsugi artist/Ceramic conservator to demonstrate the Kintsugi process. Fukumaru applies Ono’s instructions for MEND PIECE—“Mend with wisdom / mend with love / mend your heart. / It will mend the earth / at the same time.”—to her own practice of Kintsugi. For Fukumaru, in everyday life the restoration of broken ceramics is a healing process not only for herself but for everyone, the spirits and the world.

This event is presented in partnership with the Vancouver Art Gallery’s Institute of Asian Art.

To take part in this program, book your tickets to visit the exhibition GROWING FREEDOM: The instructions of Yoko Ono and The art of John and Yoko on April 24 between 2 and 4 PM.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Naoko Fukumaru was born in Japan to a third-generation antiques dealer. Her family’s auction house family was started by her great-grandfather, who collected by wheelbarrow unwanted broken objects which he restored and sold. Her father regularly brought home damaged, abandoned ceramics from his auction house. Every day, they ate from beautiful antique plates that were cracked or chipped, her baby food from imperfect old Imari porcelain. Later, Fukumaru studied ceramic conservation in England, focusing on Western “hidden” restoration practices. She has worked for over two decades as a professional ceramic and glass conservator at the Detroit Institute of Arts Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York and other institutions in the USA, Europe, Egypt and Japan. She has also worked for artists Anish Kapoor, Yoko Ono and Peter Greenaway. She now applies her expertise and skills to Kintsugi. But, instead of hiding imperfections, she creatively celebrates them.

Fukumaru’s artwork aims to open people and to encourage self-acceptance, to help heal ourselves and the world. Suffering and flaws are integral parts of our identity, elements that shape our history and uniqueness. By beautifully magnifying imperfections in objects, her work allows us to accept fragility and imperfection in ourselves and in life. By celebrating imperfection and impermanence in life she explores what it means to be beautifully broken.