• Producer(s):

    ARTE FRANCE, LAPSUS

  • Territories:

    Worldwide.

  • Production year:

    2003

  • Language(s):

    German, English, French

  • Rights:

    NON-THEATRICAL, TV, VOD, DVD

It was a visit to the Oseki traditional Chochin lantern workshop in Gifu in 1951 that inspired Isamu Noguchi's unusually-shaped lamps, in which candles were replaced by electric light.

It was a visit to the Oseki traditional Chochin lantern workshop in Gifu in 1951 that inspired Isamu Noguchi's unusually-shaped lamps, in which candles were replaced by electric light. Noguchi's Akari Lamps were first sold in Japan in 1952 and were marketed internationally from 1955 onwards.
Akari lamps are hand-crafted out of softly translucent washi paper, which is made from the inner bark of the mulberry tree. The lamp is made by stretching the paper over a framework of higo bamboo, which can be bent and folded into any shape and is attached to a metal stem.
Akari Lamps are quintessentially light and delicate. "Akari" is the Japanese word for "light", and its pictogram combines the symbols for the sun and the moon. "Akari" is also a Greek word meaning "which cannot be divided". Noguchi himself says of Akari lamps that they "seem to unfold and expand in a way that is magical and beyond anything material".

22nd International Festival of films on art in Montréal - Emile-Nelligan Foundation Award for Best Essay