The Mingei movement is a key element of Japanese culture. If this word seems unfamiliar to you, its values certainly already strongly affect you in your daily life.
Utile & Ordinaire offers products that are in line with this spirit and which contribute to improving everyday life, but also to perpetuating the tradition of craftsmanship on a large scale.
The origins of the movement
The name “ Mingei ” or “ folk crafts ” is simply the assembly of the words “ minshu ” (people) and “ kogei ” (crafts).
Created in 1925, the movement celebrates the link between the rediscovery of traditional Asian arts and the evolution of international art through design. Its founder, the Japanese writer and thinker Sōetsu Yanagi , advocates useful and essential handicraft objects for daily life .
Soetsu Yanagi was then supported by a new generation of artist-artisans, who strived since the 1920s to reveal the beauty of everyday objects and their spiritual dimension. This collective awareness, which did not reject modernism and which benefited from the arrival in Japan of Bruno Taut, Charlotte Perriand and Isamu Noguchi, was expressed in certain aspects of design from the post-war period where the action of Sori Yanagi, son of Soetsu, was decisive.
The characteristics of the object “Mingei”
A product can claim to be Mingei if great attention has been paid to its quality during its manufacture. The product must be reliable and suitable for existence. But be careful, not every useful object can claim to fall into this category. Exit overly expensive or luxurious products which are manufactured in small quantities and whose design often takes priority over their actual use. Design is good, but if it serves a purpose, it's even better.
Also removed from the list are ordinary “very cheap” objects that invade our daily lives. Produced in too large quantities, they may be of poor quality and therefore at odds with the Mingei spirit.
To summarize, a Mingei object is aesthetic, useful, of quality, but also and above all faithful to its function in daily life.
Finally, a quote from founder Soetsu Yanagi: “The Mingei must be modest but not junk, cheap but not fragile. Dishonesty, perversity, luxury, these are what mingei objects must avoid to the highest degree: what is natural, sincere, safe, simple, these are the characteristics of Mingei. ”
And a video showing the art of Shoji Hamada, one of the main contributors to the Mingei movement: