Rie Tachikawa Interview Guide

— This interview has been edited for length and clarity from a 2018 conversation.

We spend so much time trying to control the thread. We forget that the thread has its own will to ravel. My last works were a conversation about mortality. You can weave a perfect basket, but entropy always wins. I wanted to make entropy beautiful. rie tachikawa interview

In the world of Japanese textile art, fabric is rarely just fabric. For (1977–2019), it was architecture, cartography, and memory rolled into one. Before her untimely passing, Tachikawa was a rising star in the intersection of industrial design and fine art, known for turning woven structures into three-dimensional landscapes. — This interview has been edited for length

In this previously unpublished interview from 2018, we sat down with Tachikawa in her Atelier in Setagaya, Tokyo, to discuss how she un-wove the rules of contemporary craft. My last works were a conversation about mortality

Because nature is not my material. The city is my material. I live in Shinjuku. I see plastic banners, acoustic ceiling tiles, the mesh of a construction fence. Synthetic fibers are the skin of modern life.