Kintsugi: The Art of Broken Pieces

From KharmaTube: Join third generation craftsman Shimode Muneaki on a brief introduction to kintsugi, the ancient Japanese art of mending broken objects. Traditionally, lacquer is used to reconnect shattered pieces of pottery and gold leaf is applied along the repaired fault-lines to accentuate and celebrate the fissure, rather than to hide it. Watch as Shimode and his colleague, Sato Takahiko, transform everyday ceramics that had little aesthetic value when they were new into meaningful works of art after they had been broken. The moment in time when something has been shattered is permanently captured by the painstaking labours of a craftsman in building up the layers of lacquer to repair a piece. It is this reference to the now that recalls a lack of attachment to anything, but rather, being present in the moment, something constantly available to all, but particularly so when we drop a piece of china.

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