About the Work
The exhibition KOME: The Art of Rice, directed by Taku Satoh and Shinichi Takemura, was held at 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT in 2014. The theme of the exhibition was Japan’s unique culture and life, interconnected through rice. Various artists showed work from their own unique and original perspective. WOW created and displayed an interactive art piece called He who does not work, shall not eat, where participants take part in a simulated experience of rice production, taking us from the rice paddies to finished polished rice.
About the Exhibition
Harvested paddy rice is threshed in a rice thresher, and split into its two parts; the rice hull (seed) and the stem. Using a rice huller, brown rice is extracted by removing the hull. After that, the outer bran covering of the brown rice is removed, finally producing white rice. By incorporating the turning of a handle attached to a device, we designed an interactive art work that allowed visitors to experience and re-discover the whole process of rice
harvesting, grain threshing, bran removal and rice polishing.