In Arimatsu, where the traditions of Arimatsu and Narumi shibori textiles coexist with innovation, Miyata Asuka launched the Arimatsu Knitting and Stitching Group a month and a half before the Aichi Triennale’s opening. The group works with local residents and visitors to create a new community through knitting and conversation. It creates a space where people gather to exchange knowledge and stories about knitting, crocheting, needlework and so forth, and learn from each other about “the knitting of life.” It also offers opportunities for the wisdom of elders who have lived through the turbulent prewar and postwar years to be shared across generations.

In addition to creating works using an electronic knitting machine and yarn, Miyata has organized and managed community-based handcrafting clubs in Minato-ku, Nagoya since 2017, and in the Kanaiwa district of Kanazawa City in 2021. Miyata explores the nature of handcrafts such as needlework, crocheting, quilting and so forth, which are differentiated from both traditional crafts and contemporary art. Handcrafts are considered a domestic pursuit or hobby, have not earned social recognition as an economic activity, and in the context of the textile industry have been a disregarded occupation. Today, almost 100 years after handcrafts gained popularity in Japan as “an educational activity for women,” Miyata is researching changes in the social nature of household activities and learning through the handcrafting clubs she has established.

Prior to the launch of the Arimatsu Knitting and Stitching Group, a two-day workshop was held in collaboration with Minami Medical Health Co-op, in which already-used fastening yarn obtained from textile artisans in Arimatsu was unraveled and reconnected to make balls of yarn, and a two-day workshop to process fastening yarn into yarn for knitting (colloquially known as “lily yarn”). This yarn was used by visitors who participated in a weekly handcrafting club at the venue, as well as for decorations in the venue. On days when the group is not in session, participants’ comments and audio interviews recorded by Miyata at the Minato Knitting’n Stitching group sessions can be heard.

Selected Works & Awards

2021

Bilateral Visual Art Exhibition: Nagoya x Penang (Nagoya Head Office), Minatomachi Potluck Building, Aichi, Japan

2021

Kanaiwa Rakuza from the project, “Kanaiwa Shugei-bu” (Kanaiwa Knittingʼn Stitching Group), presemted by the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan

2018

Walking in Textiles—Contemporary Art in Ichinomiya, Former House of Hayashi, Aichi, Japan

2017-

Minatomachi Shugei-bu (Minato Knittingʼn Stitching Group), Aichi, Japan

Exhibition

• Installation view at Aichi Triennale 2022
• Photo: ToLoLo studio