Masamitsu Kunugi

Background

Kunugi was born in Shizuoka and trained in apparel technology at Bunka Fashion College. He became dissatisfied with fashion detached from ordinary living, then worked around food and spent roughly a year and a half maintaining and restoring Scandinavian furniture. Study in Denmark and later travel further displaced self-expression as the sole center of making.

When he turned to baskets, he chose learning through a bamboo teacher's classes over a two-year vocational course because he wanted making to remain embedded in life. After moving to Nagano in 2019 he also worked as a lumberjack. Forest labor, gathering bark and vine, basket construction, carrying, wear and repair belong to one lived system.

Boundary

Kunugi's writing and exhibitions can invoke roots, memory, ancient practice and animism, and some freer baskets approach sculpture.