nendo’s ‘Un-Printed Material’ Exhibition in Tokyo.

nendo’s ‘Un-Printed Material’ is an exhibition held at Creation Gallery G8, a gallery dedicated to visual communication in Ginza, Tokyo. “Graphic designers use paper as a medium to express their ideas. Similarly, we wanted to work with paper but approach it from a different angle. Working both by hand and with a 3D printer, we created outlines of paper as an expression of that paper, without actually using paper itself,” explains nendo.

Some of the outlines display rounding, while others show signs of the paper having once been folded. In another, when the paper is torn away, the torn section appears to have feathery layers with fibres. “By zeroing in on the finer details and carefully representing them in the outlines, we attempted to capture that unique essence of paper that we have all felt at one time or another.”

The gallery consists of three rooms. In the first, 30 sheets of A1-sized posters with outlines measuring 3mm in thickness are suspended in space, with torn or folded pieces scattered throughout. In the second room, multiple series of large postcard-sized paper with 1mm-thick outlines show five different stages within the process of that paper being modified in some way. In the final room, outlines are used in the same way to represent 3D objects that are made of paper, such as paper bags, milk cartons, paper cups, and origami figures.

An animated film that provides hints about what the outlines represent plays in the room in an attempt to stimulate the imaginations of visitors. The title of the exhibition – un-printed material – is a play on the term “printed material” that alludes to the concept of the designs.

See other projects inspired by Thin Black Lines on Yellowtrace.

[Images courtesy of nendo. Photography by Takumi Ota.]