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佐宗悠紀(さむなゆうき) Writer | Curator ライターキュレーター

@yukisumner

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👋🏼 ✍️ art, architecture & culture (bilingual 🇬🇧🇯🇵)
Trustee @invisible_dust
Mentor @womeninarchuk
Founder @future_rural_collective

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WEEK 40

ARCHIVE

LEAF HOUSE

How did we bring light and tactility to a new loft conversion for architectural photographer @edmundsumner and architectural writer @yukisumner ?

We introduced a natural material palette of Light, Earth, Timber, Fire and Water.

You home is a not a back drop, it constitutes your entire lived world experience.

#simonastridge #humancentereddesign #sensoryarchitecture #neuroarchitecture #verbsnotnouns

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WEEK 40

ARCHIVE

LEAF HOUSE

How did we bring light and tactility to a new loft conversion for architectural photographer @edmundsumner and architectural writer @yukisumner ?

We introduced a natural material palette of Light, Earth, Timber, Fire and Water.

You home is a not a back drop, it constitutes your entire lived world experience.

#simonastridge #humancentereddesign #sensoryarchitecture #neuroarchitecture #verbsnotnouns

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The Mist House, Tokyo TNA architects — @tnadesignstudio, shot in 2015.

I’ve been photographing architecture in Japan since 1999, and those years completely reframed my understanding of what architecture could be. I’ve also learned to expect the unexpected — there’s a playfulness to so much Japanese architecture, a willingness to challenge convention and inject moments of surprise and joy into everyday life.

Without doubt, this was one of the most enjoyable shoots of my career.

I took #mykidsinarchitecture @lulu.sumnerr and @cosmosumner along with me and, for maybe two hours, they very enthusiastically road-tested the slide. They basically ran riot, but the owners were incredibly sweet and seemed completely happy to let them experience the house as children should.

It was lovely to take the kids to work and watch them engage with the architecture through pure play. Sometimes the best way to understand a building is simply to use it.

Produced in collaboration with @yukisumner #mykidsinarchitecture

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“The Leaf House | The Space Between Moments”

A space where the pace of everyday life gently fades, leaving room to breathe.

Produced & Directed by Sakiko Hosoi @_sakiko.hsi
Filmed & Edited by Onkar ‘OG’ Ghume @og_cinematics

Special thanks to @leafhousese5

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Thank you to everyone who braved the heatwave last Friday to help make our second LFA/Encounters event such a success!

Special thanks to speakers Estefania Araujo Bianchi @estefiaraujo, Takeshi Hayatsu @takeshi_hayatsu, and Yuki Sumner @yukisumner; to our lovely hosts Tessa, David, Gabriel and Ryder at OEB @oebarchitects; and to Peter Otto @artdocunet for the photos

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‘Encounters with Umbrella House’ is the first UK publication dedicated to Japanese architect Kazuo Shinohara, and the first artist-led enquiry into his work internationally. Developed over three years in collaboration with artists, architects and writers: Estefania Araujo Bianchi, Christian Dehli & Andrea Grolimund, Kyoko Hanawa (Emi Kawai) & Yuki Sumner, Kevin Gauld & Julie F Hill, Sawako Nakayasu, Ana Ruepp, Emily Richardson, Lera Samovich, Tomoka Shibasaki (tr. Polly Barton), Emily Speed, Mónica Verdejo Ruiz and Leigh Wells

Editor: Anjana Janardhan
Designer: Marit Münzberg
Paperback, full colour, section sewn, 172pp + 5-panel concertina foldout
Published by @passen_gers, June 2026

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@aceagrams @londonfestivalofarchitecture #kazuoshinohara #umbrellahouse #artistbook #artandarchitecture #ACEsupported

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「から傘の家は、人間が芸術作品だの歴史的建造物だのと、概念でラベリングしただけで、本当はただ木で造られた骨組で、常に私を雨風から守ってくれた大きなシェルターだったということ。ちゃんと「家」の役割を果たす普通の家だった。ということに気づかされたんですね。」– 塙興子(河合江美)

‘Umbrella House has been labelled as a work of art and a historic building, but in truth it was just a wooden framework. It was an entirely ordinary house that properly fulfilled the function of ‘home’, always protecting me from the wind and rain. That’s what I came to realise.’ – Kyoko Hanawa (Emi Kawai)

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It’s been such a privilege to bring the voice of Kyoko Hanawa (pen name of Emi Kawai) into the Encounters book. Kyoko is an artist, illustrator and writer, and the daughter of Shinohara’s client for Umbrella House, Shozo Kawai. She lived in the house for over 50 years.

In the book, she speaks to London-based writer Yuki Sumner about her childhood and family life; her time spent with underground theatre troupe 天井桟敷 (Tenjō Sajiki) in the late 1970s/early 1980s, and her recent journey through psychotherapy.

Join us @passen_gers on Friday evening where Yuki will be reading an extract from their conversation ✨ RSVP via Eventbrite (link in bio)

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Image 1: self-portrait inside Umbrella House by マキエマキ @makiemaki_1966, 2019
Image 2: Emi Kawai with her mother (left) and a domestic help outside Umbrella House, early 1960s. Photo: Shozo Kawai. Courtesy of Emi Kawai

@kyokohanawa6 @yukisumner
#kazuoshinohara #umbrellahouse #artandarchitecture #LAF2026 #ACEsupported

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📢 The LFA2026 programme is now live!

I’m delighted to be part of London Festival of Architecture again this year, with two events taking place next month to celebrate the launch of my new artist’s book Encounters with Kazuo Shinohara’s Umbrella House.

First up is our main launch and exhibition on Friday 5 June, 6-9pm at Passengers @passen_gers (exhibition continues until Sunday 7 June). The second is a talk and Q&A event on Friday 26 June, 6-9pm at OEB Architects @oebarchitects in Hackney.

More details of our 5 June event TBA very soon – with live readings, artwork displays and film screenings, it promises to be a very special celebration of the project – please join us! ✨

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#LFA2026 #kazuoshinohara #umbrellahouse #artistbook #ACEsupported

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✨ What does it mean to be a woman in Japan through the eyes of art?

We explored exactly that at our panel discussion Voices Across Generations, held at the SOAS University of London (@soasuni) on 18 April.

We were joined by an extraordinary group of voices:

🎤 Moderated by Yuki Sumner (@yukisumner) — journalist and brilliant connector of ideas

👩‍🏫 Prof. Janet Hunter — London School of Economics

🎓 Dr. Juliana Buriticá Alzate (@jul1a_na) — University of Oxford

🌸 Namino Horii-Rivoal (@mimoza_ways )— Producer, Mimoza Ways

📖 Emily Itami (@emilyitami) — Author, Fault Lines and Kakigori Summer who closed the evening with a book signing

From academia to storytelling, from London to Japan - the conversation was rich, warm, and full of insight.

So grateful for every speaker, every question asked, and every person in that room. 🙏

📽️ Full video coming soon — stay tuned!

#VoicesAcrossGenerations #WomenInArts #JapanAndArts #SOAS #EmilyItami #FeministArts #JapaneseCulture #PanelDiscussion #BritishJapanese #GenderAndArts #LondonEvents

@soasjapansociety
@gbsasakawa @JapanResearchCenter

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In Disegno #41, @yukisumner visits @maghras_, an experimental farm, research project and community space in Saudi Arabia's Al Ahsa Oasis, to learn about the impact of climate, history, tradition and urban development in the region.

Tracing the relationship between infrastructure and memory, Sumner visits a drained spring which once supplied water and brought people together for swimming and community gatherings before they were replaced with concrete channels due to water scarcity. She also hears about the songs rice farmers sang together before their farms were industrialised or displaced after a ban on flood irrigation in the oasis forced them to move to the periphery.

Through a series of artist-led workshops, Sumner discovers how Maghras mediates between heritage and transformation, while tasting pickled lemons and learning about local practices such as cooking with rainwater and using calendars dictated by stars. "In Al Ahsa, as elsewhere, nothing ripens all at once," she writes. "Maghras does seem to offer the time and space people need to sift through the harvest fruit by fruit, memory by memory, dream by dream, so that they may reap the benefit of what they sow."

To read more, pick up Disegno #41, the latest issue of the Journal of Design.

Images: @maghras_, with illustrations by @nadaalmulla

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✨How are women’s stories told, and who gets to tell them?
We are happy to take part in organising:
Voices Across Generations

🎭Art & Representation of Women in Japan
If you’re in London, come join us for an evening of discussion on art, gender & storytelling in Japan.

With an incredible group of speakers Followed by networking + book signing

📍Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS
📅18 April
🕔1.00-4.00pm
🎟️Free — register now

Link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/voices-across-generations-art-and-representation-of-women-in-japan-tickets-1985683208931

✨With Genderscope, Mimoza Way, and SOAS Japan Society

Supported by The Japan Research Center of SOAS and The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation

🎤Speakers:  Yuki Sumner @yukisumner , Namino Horii-Rivoal, Janet Hunter, Emily Itami @emilyitami , and Juliana Buriticá Alzate @jul1a_na

💜Come if you love:  Art • Gender equality • Japanese culture • Meaningful conversations
#GenderEquality #ArtForChange #Japan #WomenStories #LondonEvents

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When I made Less a building, my 2021 book about the Snowdon Aviary, I was keenly aware that the birds’ perspective on their ‘home’ was missing from the narrative. It is such a privilege then to be able to include the voice of Kyoko Hanawa (pen name of Emi Kawai) in the current Encounters project. Kyoko is an artist, illustrator and writer, and the daughter of Shinohara’s client for Umbrella House, Shozo Kawai. She lived in the house for over five decades.

This week, I’ve been editing a series of conversations between Kyoko @kyokohanawa6 and writer/curator Yuki Sumner @yukisumner, in which they talk about their childhoods and early adult lives in Japan and the US; Kyoko’s recent experiences of psychotherapy; and her time spent with underground theatre troupe Tenjou Sajiki (天井桟敷) in the late 1970s/early 1980s.

Their dialogues add fascinating, deeply personal and wholly new layers to our study of Shinohara and Umbrella House. I can’t wait to share them 🙏

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Colour portraits inside Umbrella House by MakieMaki (マキエマキ), 2020; film stills from Grass Labyrinth (草迷宮) dir. Shuji Terayama, 1979. B&W portrait/self-portrait courtesy of Kyoko Hanawa

@shuji_terayama_office
#寺山修司 #shujiterayama #天井桟敷 #tenjousajiki

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