Folk Art and Craftsmanship Workshop at Tokyo Toy Festival
Venue: Tokyo Toy Museum
Date: November 15-16
Join us this November 15–16 for a special event celebrating the beauty of wood, craftsmanship, and cultural exchange!
Experience delicate Karakuri (mechanical dolls) by international artists, meet a traditional foot-powered lathe craftsman from Morocco, and enjoy a live performance by a nationally treasured glove puppeteer from Taiwan.
Let's rediscover the connection between wood, play, and creativity — inspiring a more sustainable future together.
Yong-Ting LAI
Glove puppetry, introduced to Taiwan over 200 years ago, forms one of the most symbolic entertainment forms there. The puppet's head, palms, and feet are carved out of wood. Traditional shows use small-sized puppets, around 30 cm, and maintain the character classifications of traditional opera. Born in 1971, Lai Yong-Ting is a skilled performer, who performed over 500 shows together with puppet master Chen Xihuang, a national treasure of Taiwanese puppet theatre. Lai also started studying puppet carving when he was still in high school. Lai is skilled at carving various characters of the traditional puppet shows and modern puppets.
Kazuaki Harada
Born in Yamaguchi Prefecture Japan in 1974. Started making automata in 2002. Trained in the workshop of a leading figure of automata production, Matt Smith, while studying contemporary crafts at Falmouth University from 2006. Founded the workshop "Nizosha" in Yamaguchi City in 2008, and has been making automata, planning automata exhibitions, and holding workshops since.
Megumi Harada
Married with Kazu Harada in 2002. Encouraged Kazu to be a self-employed-automata artist when they worked for a printing company. Meg paints on figures, takes photos and videos of automata.
