The Aesthetics of 竹
I would open this text with a 56 point list of the many structural, environmental, social, and financial benefits of bamboo. Still, I wouldn’t do it as eloquently as David Trujillo already did, so if you don’t already know, get schooled here.
Apart from all the mind-blowing benefits known until 2017, when famous bamboo Ted Talks were done, I’ll add “high conductivity.” Which I found last year during my research for the Raiki project. Yes, it turns out bamboo could also serve a more tech-oriented purpose for electric and electrochemical devices, according to Omar Pandoli’s finds.
But as much as I research and learn the unlimited wonders of this material, I can’t seem to shake the image of bamboo as this hippie, beachy, primitive, and unrefined material from my head. This stigma has prevented me from seriously considering it when designing and shopping for items.
But it wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago when I got to see Chikuunsai Tanabe and his work up close at an expo at Ginza Six that it hit me. Every negative aesthetic preconception that I have of this material is like everything else. A man-made stigma resulted from a combination of racism, classism, imperialism, and a lack of investment in the research of its real possibilities.
Chikuunsai Tanabe showcased bamboo as a refined, sophisticated, and desirable material. He showed it to me under a light I had never seen before. Like in dumb North American movies, when the main female character just takes her glasses off, and the boy sees her as this never seen before hot, interesting woman? I didn’t know bamboo was so sexy.
Chikuunsai’s work opened a pandora box inside my head (like phenomenal art always does). I started digging and found luxury bamboo flooring, Lexus car interiors, and remembered talented makers I’ve met that have been working on fascinating vernacular architecture for years like Martin Anzellini.
So more than this being an article, it’s a declaration of love towards bamboo: I am sorry I hadn’t seen you for who you really are behind those glasses, a fast-growing, easily renewable, cheap material with a wide range of physical, nutritional, and aesthetic possibilities.
I will contribute more by using bamboo when possible and made a short list of how others can contribute as well:
If you are in charge of influencing people through aesthetics (Art directors, content creators, photographers, UI designers, influencers…):
Increasing people’s exposure to the material and the bamboo color pallet in desirable contexts will increase the feeling of it being “trendy” or “fashionable,” subconsciously driving them to choose more bamboo items when shopping. So include more bamboo made items in your sets, bamboo fabrics in your collections, and include bamboo related Pantones in your digital and analog color palettes;
Bamboo Pantone: PANTONE 14–0740
If you are a maker (artist, product designer, fashion designer, architects, engineers):
Consider bamboo as a material when creating; there’s probably a process out there that will turn bamboo into anything you need, didn’t find it? Try Google scholar. It already has 20,900 published papers on bamboo this year alone (2020).
If you are an everyday person buying stuff online:
Add the word bamboo at the beginning of every search you do when shopping online…
bamboo… hairbrush
bamboo… lamp
bamboo… toys (yes, fact check)
Hungry?
Cook some bamboo shoots in a bamboo steamer.
Researcher?
More research will increase the existence of codes and applications, which will increase the use of it…
Basically, bamboo everything you do…