ARKO is a straw artist based in Tokyo who links the ancient and modern worlds of Japan using rice straw. By Hand-sewing rice straws, she creates wall-mounted artworks with sculptural patterns, bringing this ancient material back into our lives. In Japan, straw played a large role in everyday life not only as an agricultural feedstuff but also as the raw materials of Japanese style straw shoes, straw coats, blankets, food wrappers, carrier bags and all that. However, it was until a hundred years before present.

Nowadays, straw work is merely used for making a straw festoon called“Shimenawa”, which is a holy ornament for a New Year ceremony in the Shinto style in Japan. It is normally hanged on the door for a couple of weeks during the year-end and New Year season. Hence, it has been almost faded out in modern life particularly in the city area, but it doesn’t mean the change of living on rice. It is obvious fact that Japanese food culture is originally based on the rice-eating culture and it builds a multiple of customs, habitude and national characteristics. Therefore, the artist became to face straws to seek the heart of ethnic identity.

The mainstream usage hitherto was weaving straws into something. ARKO started thinking that it should be something new apart from the old traditions given that there must be a reason why straws vanished from our life. Then she determined to take new measure of straw sewing in the raw instead of straw weaving and each straw is characterised as the line drawing. This artwork will sometimes a bit droop or give out a natural scent by getting heavily moist or dry respectively with the seasons. Obviously, this will be a valuable moment, In other words, those were living creatures in fact. This type of artwork differs from ritualistic creations in that it can inspire a sense of natural providence and the power of natural life forms.