Wave Culture

A collaboration between artist Hiroshi Senju and Japanese rug maker Yamagata Dantsu has us walking on water.

- Jens H Jensen

After a series of cold winters in the 1930s decimated the farming industry of Yamanobe, in north-eastern Japan, local textile maker Junnosuke Watanabe decided to help revitalise his home town by building on the area’s existing cotton-dyeing and weaving know-how. Thinking it was about time Japan started manufacturing its own hand-woven fine wool carpets rather than importing them, in 1935 he invited seven carpet weavers from China. He hoped they would help create employment opportunities for women in the local community (at the time, precious few options existed).

The seven sensei stayed almost two years and, by the time they left, Watanabe’s Oriental Carpet Mills was a reality. At first, everything was hand-woven, but in 1965 the company started experimenting with hand-tufting guns to speed up production. Today, most of its products are hand-tufted; it still makes hand-woven carpets, but only in limited quantities, as even the most experienced weavers can only complete about six to seven centimetres a day.

More than 80 years after its creation, Oriental Carpet Mills has accrued an impressive list of Japanese clients, from classic hotels such as the Imperial and the Okura in Tokyo, to both houses of the National Diet, the Imperial Palace and various ministries and embassies. In short, everyone who is anyone in Japan has at some point walked on an Oriental Carpet Mills creation. The Yamanobe-made carpets have also been delivered further afield, to the Vatican and to the Japanese embassy in Washington.