MONO MAKERS MEET
MONO JAPAN’s new online platform, a place where talented Dutch creatives meet their Japanese counterparts
While MONO JAPAN has been managing a creative collaboration between Japan and the Netherlands since 2019, due to the coronavirus pandemic, it has now become difficult to travel back and forth. And so, using the availability of digital communication, MONO JAPAN has created MMM (MONO MAKERS MEET), an online space where talented creatives from the Netherlands can easily meet up with different types of manufacturers, artisans, and designers from anywhere in Japan.
Through our online platform, which uses MONO JAPAN’s network, Japanese makers can meet up with Dutch creatives with an interest in Japanese craftsmanship, from well-known established designers to those just starting their careers. The platform has a tag function that shows each participant’s specialty or area of interest. It can also be used to search for someone to collaborate with or to inform others of a workshop. We also recommend that the people in charge of the Artist in Residence program use the platform as a publicity tool targeting artists. And when communication problems arise, MONO JAPAN can provide support in this case, too.
Take your first step towards an encounter with Japan!
MONO MAKERS MEET is co-organized by NN Life Insurance Company and it ismade possible by support from the Embassy of the Netherlands in Tokyo.
MONO MAKERS PROGRAM
Find your next collaborator and develop new products
To stimulate collaboration between Japan and the Netherlands, NN Life and MONO JAPAN joined hands together to start up the new programme “MONO MAKERS PROGRAM”. The focus of this programme is to create a new product for the European market, that embodies the quality of Dutch design and Japanese craftsmanship.
WHAT DOES THE PROGRAM OFFER?
Hands-on support for collaborations
Within the online platform, we host the “MONO MAKERS PROGRAM” which will provide hands-on support for the collaboration between makers to create a new product. The members can seek a collaborator and communicate within the platform. When there is a mutual wish to collaborate between two parties, the pair can apply for this hands-on support program.
The focus of this program is to create a new product for the European market, that embodies the quality of Dutch design and Japanese craftsmanship. To achieve this goal, NN Life and MONO JAPAN will give hands-on support to the selected pair for one year, until the end of March 2025.
Selected collaboration by MMP 2023
The first application was closed in June 2023. The Dutch designer Mae Engelgeer (Studio Mae Engelgeer) and the Japanese washi distributor Yohei Oue (Oue co.) together won the first prize, and Boaz Cohen (BCXSY) and Hirofumi Fujii (Kiribako manufacturer Masuda Kiribako) won the special jury prize. Both pairs convinced the jury that they are meaningful and fruitful matches. To facilitate their collaboration, we will be supporting the creators in the coming period. Not only Yohei Oue from Oue co., the winner of the first prize, but also Hirofumi Fujii was invited to the study tour in the Netherlands hosted by the NN Life, as well as to the MONO JAPAN fair in September.
The collaboration between Mae Engelgeer and Yohei Oue is going very well. Thanks to Mae for her passion and own contribution of traveling to Japan a few times, which made this collaboration faster and easier.
Introduction of the organisers
NN Life Insurance Company
Since the start of Japan operations in 1986 as the first European life insurance company in Japan, NN Life Insurance Company has been providing products and services to maintain and preserve the value of small-to-medium sized companies. As part of our support for the next generation, we are implementing a program to assist the successors and young managers who will be the future of Japan’s small and medium-sized companies, Our “Family Business Innovation Lab” program is being co-hosted with two local NPOs.
Japan Cultural Exchange
Japan Cultural Exchange (JCE) is the owner of the MONO JAPAN fair and the web shop MONO SHOP. The first MONO JAPAN Fair took place in 2016 in the Lloyd Hotel Amsterdam. Since then, more than 70 Japanese participants have exhibited their works with our support, most of them for the first time in Europe, and numerous collaborations between Japan and the Netherlands were born. In November 2019, the owner of JCE established an NPO “Stichting MONO JAPAN” to organize cultural activities and to separate these activities from the MONO JAPAN fair.
MONO MAKERS PROGRAM is co-organized by NN Life Insurance Company.