There is a culture of cuteness in Japan that is so pervasive it has its own name, Kawaii. These days, Kawaii means almost anything cool, beautiful, or nice, including a new genre of quilts that Naomi Ichikawa & Teresa Duryea Wong have dubbed Kawaii quilts. In this joint lecture, you’ll hear how an obscure set of laws in the 1600s set an entire country on a course to adore tiny things, plus how centuries of Hina Matsuri celebrations have influenced quilting. We will introduce Yoko Sekita, Aki Sakai, Reiko Kato, Akiko Yoshimizu, Megumi Mizuno, and Hiroko Akita and show incredible close-up images of their stunning quilts which are covered with tens of thousands of tiny patches to create exquisite works of art that are distinctly Japanese, and most definitely kawaii. Naomi will share her expertise through a series of high-quality, pre-recorded videos, and Teresa will be live to tell the rest of the story.
