KINTSUGI
L’art de réparer avec l’or
The art of fix with gold
Legend has it that the Japanese Shogun sent a precious vase from his collection to China to have it repaired. This, however, returned to the court repaired with ugly iron joints.
Disappointed, the Shogun decided to adopt the metal joining technique but to use gold instead of iron, thus enhancing the object’s cracks. They liked the result so much that some Japanese began to break their own mugs to have them repaired with this particular technique.
The philosophy of Kintsugi is thus to bring out elements of objects that would otherwise be worthless and be considered as null by making them unique.
But what does Kintsugi have to do with the ALICE project?
For my model island I have adopted the philosophy of this technique, in fact, on my island there are layers, between which the fallen leaves from the trees are deposited and moisture is formed, in this way it is possible for plants, moss or other green elements to grow in the space, for example, between the tiles. Thus the spaces between the layers become golden cracks within which there is the potential for the valuable element of vegetation to develop.
and as the Italian songwriter « Fabrizio de Andrè » sang
« dai diamanti non nasce niente, dal letame nascono i fiori« .
(from diamonds nothing is born from manure flowers are born)
In order to show this, my model can be deconstructed to show the layers and exaggerate the space between them. In addition, the plaster is coloured with graffiti strips that reproduce possible layers of earth and try to imitate the cracks of ceramic objects.