In her radical mission to provoke the common, artist Aiko Machida displays a critical eye for the common.

Text by Michelle Tan
Images courtesy of Aiko Machida

In a time and place where we take so many things for granted, it is probably safe to say that people who do take the time to pause and rethink the ordinary objects that we frequently come into contact with on a daily basis are few and far between. But when someone does pause to reconsider the seemingly mundane, the results can be quite refreshing. Take for example Tokyo-born and raised artist Aiko Machida. An artist who engages in the constant process of de-familiarising everyday objects, she creates new meaning and new functions for the things that we often dismiss.

Machida’s creative journey began after completing a Media Studies degree in Tokyo. A trip to London to study textiles and the rest, as they say, is history. Since then, her work has been sold in cosmopolitan cities such as London, Hong Kong and Chicago. With most of her work propelled by issues of structure, Machida pays extreme attention to design details that combine functionalism with aesthetics in the most fascinating ways.

Take for instance the Geometric Leather Work Collection. Applying Japanese sensibilities and witty touches, the meticulously handmade range of fashion accessories include pendants, bags and boxes that are made of folder or moulded leather. Featuring new hand-dyeing techniques, some of these decorative pieces are changeable from two-dimensional to three-dimensional and can even be connected in diverse ways to form limitless shapes. Creativity is placed squarely in your hands, making Machida’s new collection not just versatile but universal. “I see my accessories as clothes that don’t have to fit, which will suit all sorts of people for all sorts of reasons,” she Machida says.

Clearly, Machida bears the unmistakeable mark of an artist, practising her design philosophies unapologetically. The Turned Leather Work Collection reveals the inquisitive mind of a woman who actively questions the way people see and understand things as they are known. Giving fresh interpretation to leather, wood and metal, she overturns widespread expectations of materials and what objects ought to be like – a wooden stool’s leg seems to be magically pulled to one side by an invisible force when it is actually made of leather. She transforms pieces like lamps, chairs and even a piano using leather to evoke surprise and new perspectives.

It may perhaps be disturbing to upset the seemingly rational nature of things as we have come to know them. Nonetheless, a creative intellectual revolution of sorts is due. When all else falls away, Machida leaves us with a certain consciousness: to start probing the normality of things around you.