Encountering Yoko ICHIKAWA’s work reminds me that the essence of what we call 'craft' today is a miraculous beauty born from the accumulation of countless small knots formed by human hands. The act of tying and the knots themselves are traditional techniques used to create items such as ropes, fabrics, or baskets. However, throughout history, they have also carried meanings that go far beyond mere function. They represent traces of human life — evidence of how people have engaged with nature, created things and lived. The countless anonymous knots tied by human hands remain connected over time. Even when untied, they have been reconnected and reconnected again, adapting to the needs and changes of each era. This could be seen as the very history of craft itself.

However, the knots tied by individual hands — and the memories embedded in them — can also be easily undone, whether by natural disasters or cultural extinction. Confronting this fragility head-on, Ichikawa has revived the lost technique of lacquered leather ('shippi'), a process that had once disappeared from Japanese urushi craft.
Through this technique, she layers traces of human activity and the living texture of materials to transform them into her unique expression.

Her work moves back and forth between technical mastery for practical use and fundamental questions about what it means for humans to make things by hand, as well as exploring the freedom of artistic form. It is through this process that she has arrived at the works we see today. The intense presence of her pieces does not result from mere tools or objects designed for function or form.
Rather, they embody a raw vitality born from the metamorphosis of craft itself, carrying with them multiple layers of history and memory.
Perhaps this strength stems from the fact that her work encapsulates the time before things take shape — the quiet, invisible moments that precede creation.