Mike Abelson, Carrying Research

28 Oct 2005 Category: Events & Exhibitions, Fashion, Japan

Often you’ll get phone messages from friends talking about how they are bored, asking what people are doing for the weekend, or drunkenly slurring that they love you - so it’s often a surprise when we get one where the sender is actually being vocally positive about something. I received this kind of message a few days ago and it said, “I just came back from greeaaat exhibition!!”. “Cool”, I thought, and that’s how I ended up in MDS Gallery in Yoyogi Uehara.

Mike Abelson, the designer of POSTALCO, has been interested in how people “carry” stuff with their hands and by using tools. With this exhibition, his research is being shown to the public. 8 years ago Mike started off as a bag designer, which helped focus his interest on the world of “carrying”.

When you think about it, as long as you are living and breathing you are always carrying something.　You might carry a bag, and inside there is a wallet, a notebook, a cell-phone, taser gun, ball gag and so on in that fashion. In today’s caffeine-fueled, hard-working society you often see people striding along gripping their Starbucks coffee in one hand, or even people walking and typing on a laptop or PDA. In the subway, business people hold glossy business journals under their arms, and off the subway, the train conductor　stands with microphone. (I cannot even remember when was the last time I went out carrying nothing. Maybe when I was five?)

Abelson has observed the above types of human behavior carefully. With documentation, photographs and carrying tools from various ages and cultures collected by him, the exhibition shows his drawings and photography taken on the street, showing how people carry objects. There are very unique insights like, “Maybe children were the first luggage…?” along with the images of various baby-carrying styles; on your back, on your shoulder, cradling them or putting them in the baskets. It is all very amusing.

Moreover, what I like about this exhibition is that you can touch the showpieces. The exhibition space is designed to create the idea that you are in Abelson’s research lab, so you can look through his scrap book and feel materials that make bags, etc. In front of a table covered with various sizes and shapes of handles, there is a sign saying, “Please touch and try”. Simple, but strangely fun and interesting! I tried all the handles, and they made me realize how I hold them and how they are designed.

It’s very satisfying to experience such thorough research on an act you often overlook in our usual comfortable environments.

This saturday, 29th, there is a gallery talk with Mike Abelson himself.

Mike Abelson, Carrying Research
Friday, September 30 - Thursday, November 3
Place: MDS Gallery
Address: 36-18 Oyamacho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Tel: 03-3481-6465
Organized by The Miyake Issey Foundation

© Mike Abelson Photo:Yukio Shimizu
© Mike Abelson Photo:Yukio Shimizu
at exhibition © Mike Abelson
at exhibition © Mike Abelson

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