Rie Sakamoto is a graduating art student from Japan’s Tama Art University. For her thesis exhibition, she decided to turn her eyes to the lowly rubber band, a stationary item overlooked in contemporary design, which values functionality and scarcity. Working entirely with rubber bands, which have limited functionality and are definitely not scarce, Sakamoto created a line of garments that were on display at an exhibition in Tokyo last week.

In her studies of the rubber band, Sakamoto, who is part of the department of Integrated Design, says she realized that the rubber band does in fact have more functionality than immediately meets the eye. In addition to its texture, flexibility and opacity, the rubber band is actually an aesthetically beautiful object. Sakamoto became acutely aware of this when she knitted several together and allowed the sunlight to shine through them.

Sakamoto’s “Rubber Collection” was on view last week in Tokyo as part of a group exhibition of graduating seniors. The exhibition has since ended but you can follow Rie Sakamoto on twitter.

Around this time of year we often feature some of our favorite student work from the thesis exhibitions of Japanese art universities. You can find all our previous posts here.