For a brief period in the mid-1870s, artistic woodblock prints known as “newspaper nishiki-e” were a popular form of mass entertainment in Japan. These colorful prints fed the public’s enormous appetite for sensationalism by retelling shocking stories culled from the major newspapers of the day. The Meiji government swiftly cracked down on the publishers of these “unofficial” sources of informat..
“A Dream To Have In Heaven” (Tengoku De Miru Yume - 天国でみる夢) by Maki Sasaki is a surreal non-narrative one-shot manga published in the November 1967 issue of the now-defunct Garo, an alternative manga monthly magazine that peaked in the late 1960s and early 1970s. [+] [+] [+] [+] [+] [+] [+] [+] [+] [+] [+] [+] [+] [+] [+] [+] [+]
Every August, as Japanese spirits return en masse from the otherworld, Tokyo’s Zenshoan temple exhibits a spine-chilling collection of 19th-century ghost scroll paintings. Here are a few. (Click the “+” under each image to enlarge.) Ghost [+] // Sea Monster [+] “Ghost” by Iijima Koga is a portrait of a floating, kimono-clad female apparition with all the ghastly physical features you hope to fin..
Twilight Zone I take photographs of Tokyo townscape from emergency staircase of multi-tenant buildings and of apartment houses. Most of staircases are facing back streets, and it is interesting that the other side of Tokyo appears there. Townscape in the twilight looked from staircases, to which no one reaches as if it has slipped from everyday life, has so erotic appeal that I am fascinated by ..
The Tokyo-based Groovisions motion graphic design crew has created a stylishly animated educational video for the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), which highlights some of the issues surrounding the future of food in Japan. In the video, Groovisions use their hallmark playful-yet-ordered sim-like virtual landscape to illustrate a host of food-related challenges facing Japa..
Mexican tattoo artist Dr Lakra is known for drawing macabre designs on found objects and images. During a visit to Japan last year, he inked hardcore tattoos on some fine antique ukiyo-e woodblock prints purchased at used bookstores. Some of these works were included in the “Goth” exhibition at the Yokohama Museum of Art in March, but a few of the more provocative tattooed shunga prints were ref..
Peter Thuvander and Martin Hedenström of Swedish design group Muungano have won the Swedish Library Bus of the Year award for this library bus. The library bus, designed for the town of Kiruna, won the award from the Swedish Librarian Society. The bus incorporates a library, small cinema, computer games, a sofa for listening to music and internet access. The graphics were designed by Fredrik For..
Here’s another project from Dutch designer Anke Weiss, this time a table made from 150 bonsai trees. The trees take seven years to grow. Weiss then joins them using traditional carpentry techniques and coats the structure with epoxy resin. The flat top of the table exposes the structure of the wood itself, achieved through years of compressed growth. Weiss also created the Packaging Lights we fe..
