unless otherwise noted, all images courtesy Tokujin Yoshioka

“Nature shows us a beauty that exceeds our imagination,” says Tokujin Yoshioka. “The forms of nature are unique and cannot be reproduced. This endows them with mysterious beauty and makes them fascinating to us”.

As part of the Japanese designer’s large-scale one-man show at MOT in Tokyo, Yoshioka has installed a peculiar work he calls “a painting.” Looking much more like a bed of water than a painting, the piece is actually 6-months’ worth of crystal that have been growing, layer by layer, inside a glass tank. It’s truly a work of art that has been ceded to the hand of mother nature.

But the crystals haven’t just been sitting there quietly. Throughout the whole time they’ve been exposed to the music from Tchaikovsky’s ballet, Swan Lake. The tonal vibrations and pulsations materialize within the crystal, dictating its final form.

According to Phenom World, a Netherlands based manufacturer of electron microscopes and other high-tech imaging tools, “crystals exposed to music showed differences in size, form and structure of the surface. But what exactly about different frequencies and rhythm vibrations causes the change still remains a mystery.

“I believe that a design is not something that is completed through being given a form, but rather something that is completed by the human heart. I also feel that incorporating the principles and movements of nature into ideas will become something important in future design.”







