20 March 2026
Artist Highlight - Fumika Tani
Interview and Review
Fumika Tani is a Japanese textile artist based in London. She recently completed an MA in Textile Design at Chelsea College of Arts, UAL. Rooted in the Japanese weaving tradition of Kasuri, her practice explores how textile structures evolve across cultures, materials, and environments. Working with British wool and natural dyes derived from food waste, she investigates sustainability, regional identity, and the continuity of craft. Her work has been recognised with the Woolmen’s Innovation Award and through international exhibitions and publications.
ARTIST INTERVIEW
1. TSUGI reinterprets the Japanese Kasuri tradition through British wool and locally sourced dyes. How does working between these two material cultures shape the structure of the textile?
Working between Japanese and British material cultures reshapes the structure of the textile itself. Kasuri traditionally emerged from regional fibres and dyes tied to everyday life. By weaving British wool with dyes derived from local domestic remnants, the material logic shifts while the structural principles remain. This tension creates a textile that is neither purely Japanese nor British, but something negotiated between the two. The structure becomes a site of translation where fibres, colour systems, and cultural histories intersect through the act of weaving.
2. The title TSUGI suggests continuation, connection, and inheritance. How do these ideas guide the development of the series?
The word TSUGI carries several meanings in Japanese: to connect, to continue, and to inherit. These ideas guide the series as both method and philosophy. Rather than preserving a tradition exactly as it was, the work asks how it can continue under different materials, environments, and cultural contexts. Each textile becomes a moment of transition where inherited techniques encounter new conditions. In this sense, the work is less about preservation than about continuity through change.
3. Your dyes are derived from everyday remnants such as red wine and peppermint tea. What interests you about transforming these domestic residues into colour?
I am interested in how colour can emerge from the overlooked residues of everyday life. Materials such as red wine or peppermint tea are normally associated with consumption and disappearance. Through dyeing, these remnants become visible again as colour embedded within fibre. This transformation reveals hidden cycles within domestic life, where waste can be reimagined as material. The process also reconnects colour to place and time, as each dye carries traces of daily habits and local environments.
4. Kasuri involves carefully planned resist patterns that emerge during weaving. How do you negotiate control and unpredictability within this process?
Kasuri requires careful planning, yet the final pattern only fully emerges during weaving. I find this balance between intention and uncertainty central to the process. The resist-dyed threads carry a structure that I design beforehand, but small shifts always occur as the warp and weft intersect. Rather than eliminating this unpredictability, I allow it to remain visible. These subtle variations give the textile a sense of life, reminding us that tradition is never completely fixed.
5. Within The Invisible Made Visible, your work highlights overlooked material cycles. What aspects of transformation or process do you hope viewers become more aware of when encountering this textile?
The work highlights processes that normally remain invisible within textiles. Dyeing, fibre transformation, and structural construction often disappear once a textile becomes a finished object. By working with unusual dyes and emphasising the weaving structure, I hope viewers become more aware of the layered processes embedded in cloth. The textile becomes a record of transformations: plant matter becoming colour, thread becoming structure, and everyday materials entering a new material cycle.
WEAVING CONTINUITY ACROSS MATERIAL AND PLACE
REVIEW BY CHIH-YANG CHEN, ART DIRECTOR
Fumika Tani’s practice is grounded in a sensitive negotiation between tradition, material, and place. Drawing from the Japanese Kasuri weaving technique, Fumika reconsiders how textile structures can evolve when situated within new cultural and environmental contexts. In TSUGI, she works with British wool and natural dyes derived from everyday domestic remnants, creating textiles that reflect continuity through transformation rather than preservation.
At the core of the work is the translation of Kasuri into a different material and geographic context. While the structural principles of resist dyeing and weaving remain, the shift to British wool and locally sourced dyes introduces new material behaviours and visual qualities. This interplay produces a textile that exists between cultural frameworks, where neither origin is fixed or dominant. Instead, the structure becomes a space of negotiation, shaped by the meeting of fibres, colour systems, and inherited techniques.
The concept of TSUGI, meaning to connect, continue, and inherit, guides both the making process and the conceptual direction of the work. Rather than replicating tradition, Fumika approaches weaving as an ongoing process of adaptation. Each textile reflects a moment where past knowledge is carried forward while responding to present conditions. In this way, continuity is understood not as repetition, but as a form of change that allows tradition to remain active and relevant.
Material transformation plays a significant role in shaping the visual language of the work. Natural dyes extracted from substances such as red wine and peppermint tea introduce a palette rooted in everyday life. These materials, often associated with consumption and disposal, are reintroduced as colour embedded within fibre. Through this process, the textile reveals cycles that are usually overlooked, where domestic residues become part of a new material narrative. The colours carry subtle variations, reflecting both the unpredictability of natural dyeing and the specificity of place.
The Kasuri technique itself introduces a balance between control and uncertainty. Patterns are carefully planned through resist dyeing, yet their final appearance only emerges fully during weaving. Small shifts occur as threads intersect, creating slight irregularities within the pattern. Fumika allows these variations to remain visible, giving the textile a sense of movement and life. The structure holds intention, while the surface reveals the presence of process.
Through TSUGI, Fumika brings attention to the layered transformations embedded within textile making. Dye becomes fibre, fibre becomes structure, and structure becomes surface. These stages, often hidden within finished cloth, are made perceptible through careful material choices and an emphasis on process. The work invites viewers to consider textiles not only as finished objects, but as records of connection between material, environment, and cultural continuity.