Basket of Dreams by Daniel Niles
“To make baskets is to bring the world into being.”
Basket of Dreams explores the beauty of handmade baskets through photography. Made by weaving bamboo into intricate shapes and patterns, the traditional basket represents much more than practical function. Both natural and man-made, they possess a strange allure, expressing centuries of aesthetic sensibility, knowledge and experience. In "Basket of Dreams," Kyoto-based human-environmental geographer Daniel Niles captures the beauty of basketry in photographs and explores the underlying traditions, approaches and wisdom in essays and poetry.
Basket of Dreams explores the beauty of handmade baskets through photography. Made by weaving bamboo into intricate shapes and patterns, the traditional basket represents much more than practical function. Both natural and man-made, they possess a strange allure, expressing centuries of aesthetic sensibility, knowledge and experience. In "Basket of Dreams," Kyoto-based human-environmental geographer Daniel Niles captures the beauty of basketry in photographs and explores the underlying traditions, approaches and wisdom in essays and poetry.
Image: Daniel Niles, Rokansai Fukuju.
Image above: Daniel Niles, Rokansai Man Man 3.
“Baskets are always about something else. In the world of tea, the basket holds the flowers, and the flowers describe the moment in time. Graspjing the moment in time is, in the end, the purpose of the gathering and the reason for the basket. The people, the tea or the meal, the room, tea bowl or cup, the vessel and the flowers: they are also of the moment, part of the full presence, as are the practices and processes involved in their creation and stretching out behind them, linking to other people, places, plants, soils, landscapes.”
― both quotes by Daniel Niles
Image: Daniel Niles, Hosai II 3.
Basket of Dreams by Daniel Niles, Eocene Arts and Nitesha Books Japan, 2024, £88 Kyoto-based Eocene Arts presents 20th century Japanese studio arts in bamboo, clay and bronze. Their beautiful book 'Basket of Dreams' on bamboo baskets in Japan and basketry in the wider world, is reviewed in our current issue, Adorable. Please Read the entire article in Selvedge issue 121, Adorable.