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 will be on show as part of this year’s London Design Festival 2024 from September 14th-22nd.

In this talk, Kathleen will discuss 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 will discuss 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 will touch 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’.

About the contributors

Kathleen Reilly

Kathleen Reilly is a Scottish artist and metalworker with over ten years of experience whilst living in the UK and Japan. She graduated from The Glasgow School of Art Silversmithing & Jewellery department in 2015 and completed her Masters in Jewellery & Metal at the Royal College of Art in 2018. Her journey creating Oku began in 2018 when she visited the ‘Biology of Metal: Metal Craftsmanship in Tsubame-Sanjo’ exhibition at Japan House London and discovered the skills of their craftspeople. In 2019, she moved to Japan on the Daiwa Scholarship. From 2020-2022, she trained with artisans in Tsubame-Sanjo and developed Oku, which won Dezeen Awards Homeware design of the year in 2022.

Admission Free/Booking Essential