An installation presented within the joint booth of Arakawa & Co., Ltd. and Koshin Planning at JAPAN SHOP 2025, a leading trade fair for store design.

Under the theme of "EVER ORIGIN", the installation "The Great Tree" emerges as a majestic yet delicate form that shimmers with brilliance. The piece challenges new value creation in wire grip systems while highlighting the inherent beauty of resin. Measuring 3 meters in diameter and 3.7 meters in height, the tree is composed of over 180 cellulose acetate resin pieces, reminiscent of flowing tree sap, supported by 600+ diverse wire grip components. While modern 3D printing technology enables precise and artificial shaping, natural resin retains organic, uneven traces of life.

Through its encounter with the wire grip system, the work achieves a sense of weightlessness and jewel-like radiance, liberated from gravity. This exhibition seeks to return to the origins of resin, embracing the unexpected flows and irregularities of resin within 3D printing's precision, and to explore new value creation through "contemporary resin" by fusing the artificial and the natural.

 

[Notes from Atsushi Shindo]

 

This exhibition, combining Arakawa's wire grip system and Koshin Planning's plant-based cellulose acetate resin, provided a meaningful opportunity to revisit the passion and origins of both companies' craftsmanship. In imagining a great tree shining eternally, I envisioned a deep forest where nature and artifice, the ancient and the modern, are seamlessly connected. The meeting of resin, which surrenders to gravity to create rich forms, and wire grips, which liberate objects from gravity, brings forth the outline of a tree an experience akin to discovering a radiant force within nature. It is, in a way, a journey to find what I call "EVER ORIGIN", an eternal starting point. Today, when we hear the word "resin," we tend to think of industrial, petroleum-based plastics something artificial and rigid. Yet, originally, resin is a natural substance, formed as tree sap hardens, carrying the warmth of wood and traces of life itself. As resin becomes amber, it gains a new kind of value, crystallized over time. With this installation, we aim both to return to resin’s natural origins and create new value from "contemporary resin.” When I first encountered the cellulose acetate resin objects used in this installation, I was struck by their beautiful amber color, so much like natural resin. Although this material can be colored in various ways, we intentionally left it uncolored, embracing the material’s inherent hues. Moreover, during the 3D printing process, instead of using uniform material extrusion for precision (as is standard), we deliberately adjusted the extrusion flow, creating fluctuations that resulted in droplet-like expansions and pools of light. Through repeated prototyping, we explored ways to capture this delicate expression. Even flat parts, when crafted in this way, gain a sense of depth and luminous richness, a testament to Koshin Planning’s technological expertise and relentless pursuit of beauty. Arakawa's products, on the other hand, bring a crisp tension to spaces, and sometimes blend so seamlessly into their surroundings that they nearly vanish. They are both reliable supporting players and subtle highlights within a space. In this installation, we primarily used the SFK-1S, a wire grip for securing panels, along with a variety of other components to support the spatial composition. The wire grip system allows for a playful, light interaction with gravity, giving the space a dynamic and elegant sense of balance.