Cloth Across Generations: Junichi Arai and the Memorial Textile Studio
About this Event
Explore the inventive textile world of Junichi Arai and the family studio carrying his legacy forward. This exhibition brings together 27 textiles, including original works by Arai and pieces from the Junichi Arai Memorial Textile Studio, offering a close look at the relationship between material experimentation, memory, and continuity.
Rooted in the weaving traditions of Kiryu, Japan, Junichi Arai (1932–2017) expanded the possibilities of cloth through adventurous combinations of traditional knowledge and new technologies. His experiments with yarn, structure, and processes such as melt-off created remarkable effects of texture, transparency, and reflection. His fabrics helped shape the work of designers including Issey Miyake and Rei Kawakubo, and entered museum collections around the world. In 1984, he established the textile shop NUNO in Roppongi, Tokyo.
In 2018, his daughter, textile researcher and weaver Motomi Arai, and her husband, textile historian and designer Masanao Arai, established the Junichi Arai Memorial Textile Studio. Both had worked closely with Arai, supporting his research, exhibitions, and textile production. Today, they continue to study his techniques and create new pieces using fabrics from his final years.
In 2019, a fire destroyed the Arai family home and storehouse, taking with it textile works, related materials, folk costumes, and books. The studio’s continuing practice gives particular resonance to Portland TextileX Month’s theme, Layers of Resilience. Through the textiles and the knowledge held by their makers, this exhibition invites us to consider how creative traditions endure through change and loss, and how experimentation and shared care carry them into the future.
Please use the entrance at 1981 SW Broadway. Press the doorbell, and someone will buzz you in during business hours. The exhibitions are located on the third floor.
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