Metalworker Kathleen Reilly's design journey: From Glasgow to Tsubame-Sanjo and beyond

Kathleen Reilly is a Scottish artist and metalworker based between the UK and Japan. By writing poetry, she observes and absorbs fleeting moments and unconscious actions within her every day; key texts are chosen and abstracted to form tangible objects. Aiming to provoke thought on the everyday and rituals at the table, she creates functional work of a particularly experimental kind.

Having recently received acclaim for her design Oku, a new knife with a unique folded handle carefully produced in collaboration with highly skilled craftspeople in Tsubame-Sanjo, an area in Niigata Prefecture, Japan, renowned for its metalworking tradition for over 400 years, the completed design were on show as part of the London Design Festival 2024, September 14th-22nd (more info here).

In this talk, Kathleen discussed her journey from her hometown of Glasgow in Scotland to the small metalworking town of Tsubame-Sanjo and her inspiration and experiences living and training there for two years. Reflecting on the London Design Festival exhibition, she discussed Oku in-depth, including her collaboration with Karimoku Furniture, Japan’s leading wooden furniture manufacturer and the background behind her installation and film created with Riyo Nemeth and Paz Castro featuring music by soundscape designer Hiroki Saitoh to celebrate the fusion of Eastern and Western cultures.

To conclude, she touched on her new metal casting project inspired by Takaoka’s centrifugal casting techniques and aim to capture the fleeting nature of life through her series ‘Gran’s Plates’ and ‘Mother’s Plates’.

www.kathleenreilly.co.uk      |     www.instagram.com/kathleenleen

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