In Huddersfield, England, a half hour’s drive down the road from Yorkshire Sculpture Park....
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In Huddersfield, England, a half hour’s drive down the road from Yorkshire Sculpture Park, artist Yukihiro Akama fashions a whimsical, miniature world from within a furniture maker’s workshop.
In his forthcoming solo exhibition at YSP—his largest to date—the artist presents 55 intricately carved wooden houses in Basho no Kankaku—A Sense of Place.
Akama, who pursued a career in architecture while living in Japan, often relied on digital tools and felt disconnected from traditional methods of building and working with his hands.
After he moved to the U.K. in 2011, he began to carve small houses that reminded him of vernacular styles, like stilt houses, that he would see on his travels around Asia. Inspiration also comes from Japanese temples and shrines, particularly elements from 4,000-year-old ruins dating to the Jomon era.
