The Timeless Ways of Business in Kyoto

Okisato Nagata (TIMELESS Inc.) reflected that through his involvement in art and design, he has been drawn to craft as an act of embracing “different movements and elements.” The term kōgei (工芸, craft) appears as early as the Kaogongji (考工記, Records on the examination of craftsmanship) of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period in China. Approximately 3,000 years later, he argued, humanity now faces an era in which we must pursue balance in making things—balance with climate, topography, and history.
Through the exhibition project tetete (ててて) Nagata has explored the option of medium-scale production—creating manageable quantities in manageable ways. In a kintsugi project developed in collaboration with a department store in Kyoto, he explored methods for loving flaws and weaknesses. Rather than pursuing merely material cycles such as “recycling” or “remaking,” he emphasized the importance of fostering cycles of relationships.

Okisato Nagata

Feilang Tseng (ROOTS Inc.) described how, after practicing design thinking, industrial design, and UI/UX design, she became aware of the limitations of human-centered design. Living in a mid-Edo-period thatched farmhouse in the Keihoku area of northern Kyoto City, she discovered that satoyama landscapes already embodied what might be called “nature-centered design.”
Working with thatchers and foresters—“Local Wisdom Meisters”—she participates in managing thatch fields on a 20-year cycle and practices circularity using materials sourced within a three-kilometer radius. Positioning travel as a “gateway industry” to the region, ROOTS operates one- to seven-day training programs called “Satoyama Journeys,” as well as “Wisdom Exchange” initiatives connecting artisans from Japan and abroad. Tseng emphasized the importance of experiences through which individuals feel themselves to be part of nature through the body, restoring creativity by aligning mind and bodily sensation, and cultivating a disposition that enables sustainable design to be considered as one’s own concern.

Feilang Tseng

Taiji Okura (Gekkeikan Sake Co., Ltd.) introduced the nearly 400-year history of sake brewing in Fushimi, Kyoto. Beneath Fushimi lies 4.5 billion tons of groundwater that circulates over four to five years. The breweries of Fushimi, including Gekkeikan, use only a few percent of this supply. Okura remarked that learning this fact gave him the sense that they are “merely allowed to use a small portion of water within a vast natural flow.”
Tracing the history of sake and its relationship to Shinto rituals, he outlined Gekkeikan’s 400-year trajectory, explaining how the company’s adoption of scientific technologies, adaptive advertising strategies, and responsiveness to historical shifts enabled it to seize opportunities across eras. He concluded by describing the 48-hour continuous process of cultivating kōji mold, noting that sake brewing is in many ways a “microorganism-centered” practice in which humans work for the sake of microbes. From the perspective of human–microbe relationships, he posed the question: What does it mean for something to be “handmade”?

Taiji Okura

In the latter half of the session, the three panelists reflected on each other’s activities and raised several key points.
In discussions of “medium-scale production,” embodied by the practices of Nagata and Tseng, it was suggested that the era is shifting from homogeneous ideals of “anytime, anywhere, anyone” toward “here, now, me.” The significance of creating what can only be produced in a particular place, including culture, is increasing.
Regarding the “acquisition of embodiment,” Tseng shared that through living in satoyama, she came to understand the coexistence of differing values that once felt discordant within an urban mindset. Rather than resembling a “symphony,” in which surrounding elements align to a single melody, this coexistence is better described as “polyphony,” a multiplicity of voices. Immersing herself in the environment enabled her to perceive the value of such polyphony.
Okura, meanwhile, reflected that although he is unsure whether he fully fits within the value system woven through the long history of the brewery, he may be exploring a polyphonic sensibility through recurring annual rituals and practices, such as Shinto ceremonies and visits to the household Buddhist altar.