Pot exhibition in Tokyo november 2024

On a quiet street in a neighborhood in Ogikubo, not far from the station where the trains along the Chuo line make their way to the center of Tokyo, sits the Yukimono store. Outside the well polished windows stand rows of young plants and bonsai.

Yukiko Kasai, who runs the store with gallery, prepares for today's visitors. Yesterday we were here to set up the exhibition, but towards the end Yukiko moves the pots around and changes the lighting.

It is now exactly ten years since we first met her at a bonsai show in Poland. Then she talked about her dream of that one day open up a shop and a gallery. Her mission was to appeal to a younger audience by selling unique and groundbreaking pots for both bonsai, kokedama and kusamono. "There is a lack of an avant-garde branch in bonsai," she said in 2017 when we met her again in Tokoname, where she saw to it that we, me and Carina Jern, were invited to work together with Hidemi "Shuhou" Kataoka. The idea then was that a cross-fertilization of traditional Japanese and Western would create the spark she felt bonsai in Japan needed. Today she sells Japanese pots to foreign customers and foreign pots to Japanese customers.

That she succeeded is confirmed by a young girl who arrives early when the exhibition opens. She says that, like most younger Japanese, she thought bonsai was for older, conservative men. When she moved into the neighborhood, she had quickly discovered the Yukimono store and fell in love with the small pots with the young feminine trees. She quickly decides on two of Carina's colorful creations and one of my hand-thumbed mame with lava glaze.

She is not alone, customers come and go during the two days the exhibition is open. Carina and I are particularly proud when emissaries from the Swedish embassy come to interview us. Nor do they leave the exhibition empty-handed, but take with them a kokedama planted in one of my kusamono pots.

The emissaries from the Swedish embassy paid us a visit.

Me and Carina explain to visitors with the help of pictures of Swedish nature and Scandinavian culture why our pots, which are perceived as hugely exotic, look the way they do. With astonishment, they pick up pots with motifs from Norse mythology. Time and again I get to tell about the Swedes' respect for nature and how in ancient times we saw the world as a world tree named Yggdrasil. The shelves quickly become emptier and Yukiko is there filling them, when she is not in the small office/packing room where she carefully wraps the sold pots in Swedish newspapers, which we have brought with us on her request, since they give the customer's package that " little extra”.

Me, Carina and Yukiko during a pottery talk on sunday

When the last customer leaves on Sunday, it has already gotten dark and all three of us are exhaling with joy. Only one of all visitors leaves empty-handed, but wishes to return the following day with some of his trees to find a match. Yukiko, who gives her customers full service, therefore promises not to take down the remaining pots until the following day.

Exuberant, after all the meetings and exciting conversations, Carina and I go home in the dark, which is lit up by colorful restaurant lights and flashing neon signs. A rain starts pattering against our jackets but we don't care as we hurry towards the station. Thoughts are already starting to arise that we have to redo this. But first two days of rest and recovery, before it's time for the next exhibition in a zen garden on the outskirts of Takao.

Visit Yukimono store at: https://yukimono.com

Visit Carina Jern website at: https://www.carinajern.com