Kohki Hiramatsu

Since I spent half of my life in China and another half in Japan, my cultural identity has two contradicted aspects. It is difficult for me to define the community where I belong to. When I was in China, I felt more identity as Japanese, but when I was in Japan, I felt more Chinese personality. And now, after I came to New York, I completely lost the direction and started to question the definition for explaining myself. While primary interest to create shoes was simple, I like to walk around the city, I began to superimpose my sandwiched- cultural identity with the image of the shoes. We cannot wear one shoe to go out. We just need a pair of shoes to support our whole body. I suddenly understand my identity and how I think today is an outcome of the mixture of both cultures, Japanese and Chinese. Therefore, I decided to design a pair of shoes and adorn them with the texture derived from the symbol bird of two nations, pheasant and crane. During the process, I added the surface sheets of the shoes for cushioning properties and the aesthetics by weaving the strips of cardboard-like Tatami.