Events
Past Exhibitions, showcases and Future events
Yokimono Japanese Christmas Market
SAT 2nd & SUN 3rd December
11am-6pm
📍THE FACTORY @thefactorydalston
21-31 Shacklewell Lane, Hackney, London E8 2DA
🎫FREE ENTRY registration
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Explore traditional and contemporary Japanese arts & crafts, food & culture, and authentic & unique YOKIMONO (よきもの; meaning ‘GOOD things’ in Japanese) gifts for Christmas 🎁
SCP x Ishinomaki Laboratory | 10 years
2021
My contribution towards the collection is a hand thrown terracotta bird bath placed on top of a wooden red cedar base. The idea was to keep it simple. I don't want to call it an anti-design piece, because I don't design against stuff necessarily, not normally. I would say it is a piece that seeks to make people think about the whole DIY idea, and whether they could make things for themselves. Which is the true spirit of Ishinomaki Laboratory.
A design created for birds rather than people, but which may end up on the dining table. This piece has been created to be as simple as possible and seeks to encourage people to embrace the DIY aesthetic and attitude of Ishinomaki Laboratory. Two pieces of wood have been put together in an interlocking pattern, to form the base for a bowl, to create a bird bath. The design is being made available with a terracotta bowl, but works with any relatively shallow bowl. Low to the ground, this is ideally placed near some bushes in a garden. Made from western red cedar.
Botanical Studies
SCP Curtain Road August 2021
Introducing Botanical, a new collection of vases, plates and bowls from Reiko Kaneko. First developed when Reiko opened her London garden studio in 2019, the collection is inspired by, and decorated with, depictions of the flora and fauna that surround her.
Each piece in this collection is unique, they are all hand-made and decorated by Reiko.
Himatsuri Pottery Festival, Kasma Japan
May 2021
The largest pottery and arts festival in Ibaraki - Japan. More than 200 artists, craftspeople and gallery owners exhibit their works at the festival.
Reiko Kaneko ceramics alongside other Staffordshire based ceramicists were selected by Wagumi London for this prestigious event.
Future Food Exhibition
Food for Tomorrow’s World
30th May 2020 - 21 February 2021
The exhibition is designed as a ‘thought space’ for us to question the way we engage with food, our enjoyment of it, our health, and our global responsibility. Reiko Kaneko’s collaborative work with NEFF will be shown as part of an artistic representation of flavour perception.
STIFTUNG DEUTSCHES HYGIENE-MUSEUM
LINGNERPLATZ 1 01069 DRESDEN, GERMANY
Limited Editions Bluecoat Display Centre Liverpool 2020
‘Limited Editions’ will feature designer/makers who produce beautiful batch production homeware and jewellery that has been carefully selected to ensure there is no compromise on design or quality.
Bluecoat Display Centre is one of my favourite specialist galleries that select contemporary ceramics in the UK. They’ve had to close their doors before the show had a chance to open due to the pandemic but please support them if you’re ever in Liverpool. They stock a beautiful selection of work.
Saturday 14th March 2020 - Saturday 23rd May 2020
Bluecoat Display Centre, The Bluecoat, 50-51 College Lane, Liverpool, L1 3BZ
Ceramics Showcase
SCP Pimlico Road 2019
Reiko Kaneko and SCP presented the latest collection from her fine bone china range inspired by the garden and all things botanical alongside the new Orlando two seat sofa.
Here Reiko launched Botanical, white bone china plates and bowls, cast in Stoke-on-Trent. Glaze decoration applied by brushes or leaves in the garden, and fired there in the studio, with an additional firing for the gold stippled rim.
And Dahlia, black bone china plates and bowls cast in the garden workshop, then brushed white slip decoration and glazed. This decoration came from Reiko’s wanting to paint white flowers from the garden – not easy on white bone china – and this layered and textured finish worked best for the wild spirit of the Dahlias.
All That is Broken is Not Lost
Ceramic Exhibition at Sway Gallery 2019
In this exhibition Reiko presented her exploration of imperfection. The practice and craft of ceramics provide many opportunities to exercise this, to open the mind to “flaws”.
Wabi-sabi is a simple concept that you can see everywhere, on the pavement, on the bark of a tree. A beauty that’s available to all, the mended pieces come to represent more than their original selves, Reiko presented a collection of pieces inspired by this.
Image by Emmi Hyppe
Top Drawer 2019
Every year Top Drawer search the globe for an extraordinary and distinctive edit of design-led brands across the lifestyle spectrum.
In 2019 Reiko Kaneko showed her dramatic glazed wares, each customised and made to order.
Useful/Beautiful: Why Craft Matters 2019
Harewood House
Reiko created a new collection of work for the inaugural Harewood Biennial, Useful/Beautiful: Why Craft Matters at Harewood House near Leeds. As one of twenty-six makers, the exhibition highlighted the breadth and diversity of craft across contemporary culture.
Her response to the question why craft matters, is deeply rooted in her time in Stoke-on-Trent. It’s a story of communities and industry, of process, making and of imperfections that reflect something natural and true.
In 2018, playwright Chris Thorpe came to Stoke and crafted a story about the everyday. He came without judgement to see the place and tell its story. The words from his play that struck Reiko have been inscribed into black fine bone china plates, made in her Studio in Stoke-on-Trent. They suggest a version of Stoke’s story, its past and future, albeit through the eyes of two outsiders. So while the objects are a synthesis of experience and technique, the words on them represent the same thing, from a different angle, in a different form.
Decorex 2018
Tile Murals
Here Reiko launched her tile murals which are a culmination of her research into the alchemy of glazes. Once the elements combine they react in the heat of the kiln, creating colours and patterns that occur in nature. They leave behind remnants of a bubbling surface that is frozen in time as the kiln cools.
She also displayed wave plates - heavily inspired by Japanese artistry - and other tableware and vessels for the interior.
London Design Festival 2018
Shoreditch Design Triangle at Nobu Hotel
In September 2018, Nobu Hotel London Shoreditch joined in bringing into the fold their understated but luxurious offering. Reiko Kaneko collaborated with them to open a popup exhibition and shop in Nobu Hotel London Shoreditch’s Luxury Lobby Lounge.
On display was a range of ceramic Jewellery, Wave Dinnerware and a selection of her signature Studio Glaze wares.
London Craft Week 2018
House of Ceramics at SCP
In May 2018 Reiko was invited by SCP to share her thoughts and influences that currently shape the practice as part of London Craft Week.
The ceramic studio from Stoke-on-Trent was re-created in SCP window, showcasing the numerous glazes and ceramic body tests that illustrate the breadth of experimentation that goes into understanding ceramic materials.
Also displayed as part of the exhibition were Reiko’s Studio Glazed Balancing Acts, Wave Plates and her Terracotta work with SCP and Steve Harold, SCP’s Suffolk potter.
London Design Fair 2017
The British Craft Pavilion
In September 2017 Reiko participated as part of London Design Fair in The British Craft Pavilion in Truman Brewery with her Balancing Act vessels along with many other new products including new jewellery, new luxury tableware and the expanded range of Shotoku glassware.
London Design Festival 2016
All that is Broken is Not Lost at Elementary
Building on Exploring Glaze from LDF 2015, Reiko brought a new collection of unique glazes to this 2016’s London Design Festival returning to Elementary Store on Redchurch Street as part of the Shoreditch Design Triangle.
The new exhibition All that is broken is not lost combines the best results from a year spent refining her Reactive Glaze process with the ‘best-worst’ mistakes. Broken pieces lost to the intense heat of the kilns have been carefully restored using the traditional Japanese technique of Kintsugi. The delicate process highlights and accentuates flaws and cracks using lacquer and precious gold.
Embracing the Japanese philosophy of Wabi-Sabi and an appreciation for the imperfect and the natural, mended pieces come to represent more than their original selves.They help tell the story of all the objects in the exhibition, the rigours of the firing and testing process, and draw attention to the provenance of all the objects broken and unbroken alike.
London Design Festival 2016
2016 collection SCP
Reiko launched her Nami Cluster lights in the SCP 2016 Collection – located in the Shoreditch Design Triangle.
Reiko’s lighting was showcased alongside furniture designs by Matthew Hilton, Peter Marigold, Michael Marriott, Terence Woodgate and Donna Wilson, as well as a textile collection by Hannah Waldron.
London Design Festival 2015
Exploring Glaze at Elementary
London Design Festival 2015 brought together the first collection of reactive studio glazes that have been in development since Reiko’s move to Stoke-on-Trent.
What many initially saw as heresy – glazing over the pristine white china of the Potteries, we saw as an opportunity to explore techniques that could emphasise the qualities both of Stoke-on-Trent’s bright white china and of the rich colourful glazes.
Working collaboratively with Elementary’s owners, Kotaro and Athena, gave us the chance to display the Studio Glaze Vases in a new context. The starting point for laying out the vases was based around their regular geometric forms. These shapes, presented in small, clustered groups, hint at the methodical testing process, and repetitive firing process that went into producing the unique reactive glaze finishes on each piece. Some pieces were fired up to five times to create deep hues.
As part of 2015’s Shoreditch Triangle we launched two new designs with the design store SCP. This included the fine bone china Nami Pendant lights. And a collection of larger terracotta vessels named Chika. Both explore further the properties of the materials being used. The Nami lights exploit the beautiful translucency of thinly cast fine bone china. The terracotta Chika collection plays with larger scales and proportion.