Photo: Kazuki Guzmán
“For nearly four months, I traveled on a boat to thirty different countries engaging in arts and social practices through a non-governmental organization that worked to promote peace, human rights, environmental protection and sustainable development,” says Kazuki Guzmán about an experience that shaped him as an artist and as a person. “It made me look deeper into my own roots and got me interested in Japanese traditional crafts.” By integrating crafts with industrial technology, the Chicago-based designer—he also serves as the assistant director of the Sullivan Fabrication Studio, the makerspace of the Architecture, Interior Architecture, Designed Objects department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago—aims to preserve history and skills that remain integral to how we evolve. In a conversation, he talks about the origin of the mingei…
