Teruhiro Yanagihara graduated from Osaka University of Arts in 1999. Since establishing his own design studio in 2002, based in Kyoto and Osaka he has been active primarily in designing furniture and products as well as interior design.

Yanagihara has won global acclaim especially for his blend of Japan’s Arita porcelain tradition and innovative design. He has served as director of a joint project between Saga Prefecture (home to Arita, where the porcelain is produced) and the Netherlands that led to a revival in appreciation of Arita porcelain, and of the “2016/” project marking the 400th anniversary of Arita porcelain; and he has exhibited his work at Salone Internazionale del Mobile di Milano. Yanagihara has also been involved in numerous projects spanning multiple genres. For example, he has provided designs for overseas brands in Sweden, Italy and France, and taken part in launching new Japanese brands; the latest brands include the furniture brand KARIMOKU NEW STANDARD, the leather item brand TYP by Morpho, and the 1616/ arita japan brand of ceramic ware.

At all times Yanagihara’s creative philosophy is “to design the situation of designing.” Instead of mulling how he might personally wish to design, Yanagihara is working in collaboration with those who are in any way involved in a design project, focusing directly on what is demanded, on what is truly needed, and on considering who will use what will be produced, and how. By thinking with others, he is designing the given situation and is proceeding from there. In this design practice, one finds a structure built on relationships of trust with his associates, which is different from merely working up a design for a client.

Yanagihara’s philosophy is a desire to design in entirety the situation that arises by linking people, objects and spaces. For this exhibition, his approach is an installation using cloth, bringing together ordinary light and breezes. How are the visitor and the space interacting when they are in contact with each other? Yanagihara’s exhibition will be filled with experiments in situations that arise only with the presence of the visitor, and the ever-changing spaces that those situations generate.