Movie

The process of preparing Ryukyu indigo usually begins on June 23, the Okinawan day for remembrance of the dead, and proceeds for about half a month. The word “indigo” does not refer to a single plant, but rather to a compound found within various plants, including the Okinawan indigo (Acanthaceae), dyer’s knotweed frequently cultivated in mainland Japan (Polygonaceae), the Indian indigo found widely across Asia (Fabaceae), and woad (Brassicaceae). These images introduce a dye which has been produced in Okinawa since ancient times: doroai. Each year, around the end of the rainy season, we harvest around 400kg of Ryukyu indigo and steep it in a 3m diameter basin filled with water. The basin is covered and stone weights placed on top, and after 50-55 hours of waiting a blue film forms on the water’s surface: this is the indigo pigment. After removing the residue of the leaves and adding the proper amount of quicklime, several people aerate the liquid by stirring it; after a bit less than an hour, the indigo pigment solidifies and settles to the bottom of the basin. This precipitate is called doroai. The doroai is put into bottles, fermented, and used for dyeing. At kitta, we use it as the base for producing green, blue, and purple colors.
Video: Ohji Ogawa

HIRAKU

The work “HIRAKU” exhibited at Anrakuji in Kyoto in the autumn of 2017 was the first time kitta showed an installation. This exhibition started with the question “Assuming that humans and nature are equal and present in a space, what would you add to it?” and invited artists working with flowers, tea, food, sound, light, design, and photography to participate. We hope viewers will be able to get a sense from this film of the way this project unfolded in time and space, opening all the senses within the natural environment.

Installation: Yuko Kitta (kitta)
Sound: Yoshihisa Shiota (meditations)
Performance: SAWADII, 222 (Shunji Mori), OLAibi
Food: Chinatsu Doi, Fumiko Shirota
Tea ceremony: Harumi (Kojitsukyo)
Flower arrangement: Shuho
Light and candles: Rin
Publicity photography: T. Minamoto
Publicity design: Yuichiro Matsui
Technical direction: Yoko Sato
Cordination: Kaori Sasayama, Yoina Sawano
Cooperation and venue: Anrakuji
Sound: TIMEDOMAIN
Video: Ohji Ogawa
Sound: SAWADII

Yellow room(untitled)

This video documents an installation exhibited at Curator’s Cube in Tokyo in November 2019. How to transmit the pure yellow color obtainable from the happiness tree (an Okinawan plant) in its purest form? How to create a space in which the life energy of color can be experienced as it is naturally expressed? The piece created in response to this question was like a container made to hold the unseen.

Installation: Yuko Kitta (kitta)
Video: Shoji Onuma
Music: Shunji Mori (222/Gabby&Lopez)

HABEL-HABELA / KITTANAI (2021)

The Ryukyu arc represents the bow shaped archipelago spanning between the islands of Amami-oshima and Taiwan. This is the second exhibition for the creative unit KITTNAI, formed by artists Yuko Kitta and Yukihito Kanai, who work with natural dye in their respective islands that are part of the Ryukyu arc. Entitled Habel-Habela, their show shares common motifs such as boats, which was the only means of transportation that bridged the islands within the arc, and butterflies that flutter across the ocean, carried by the wind.
The title Habel-Habela is a word they came up with, combining the words for butterfly on their respective islands of Amami-oshima and Okinawa.
When transportation networks and communication means were not as developed as today, languages and cultures were communicated orally, mouth to mouth, transported by people crossing the ocean. Travelers who set out to sea to trade and fish brought the songs back from other islands as souvenirs. In such cases, we can easily imagine that it was not about the sharing of instant memories that we see today, and rather, memories, or even time, carried over in our physical bodies as vessels. Their memories brought home in that manner would be nurtured in their own terms, eventually overlapping over time in their destinations, and preserved in various modes. Cultures rapidly flow, over physical distances and time, especially in the times today when the sharing and documentation of instant images have become possible due to development of civilization. However, on the other hand, the songs, dances and festive rituals that have been transported, transmitted and passed on, are now disappearing, one after another, from the face of the earth.
Habel-Habela is an attempt to re-connect the time that has been disconnected, and at the same time, to take on the role as a pre-celebration of how we can envision the moment in the future. As we live within the many layers of time that is constantly accumulating, we hope that these faint fluttering of wings would later transform into a pleasant breeze that would blow in a world we may come to see.

KITTANAI
The islands of Amami and Okinawa are located within the Ryukyu arc that stretches across the south of Japan. In their respective islands, where nature, that has been thriving since ancient times, and cultures are still very much alive, they have commonly been working with natural dyes. Yukihito Kanai and kitta teamed up in 2021 to form their unit KITTANAI, as an attempt to create a dialogue with colors. The natural beauty they bring in to express themselves communicate well beyond language.

Yuko Kitta / kitta
Based in northern Okinawa, Yuko Kitta / kitta creates clothing and spatial designs in relation to nature and people, while making sure that her work flows consistently, from the point where things are born and to the point when things are sent back to earth, all within the process of growing and cultivating natural dyes, and in the process, using firewood and fermentation, as well as design and sewing.

Yukihito Kanai /KANAIKOUGEI
Yukihito Kanai is an artisan of colors, who is also the director of KANAI KOUGEI, where he continues to hone his technique of mud dying for Amami Oshima pongee. He strives to create phenomena, with a vision to connect the cultures of Amami-Oshima, where he is based, proposing innovative interpretations that work in a contemporary context.