The Whispering Wood – Sho Ota

How can we let a natural material speak to us? I observe and listen to the wood before I transform it into a unique, spirited piece. If you listen closely, you can even hear the material’s breath.

Designer Sho Ota invites us to pause and listen to the voices of trees. He searches for the identity and beauty of the wood in his designs, not by polishing them starkly, but by carefully chiseling every knot from the fl at surface. The variations reveal the voice of each piece: some objects seem to shout at us aggressively, while others whisper to their origins. The textures can be observed carefully by touch.

Sho Ota (JP) graduated from the master Contextual Design at Design Academy Eindhoven and continues to live and work in Eindhoven. Before coming to the Netherlands, he worked as a designer and a prototype maker at a wooden furniture manufacturer in Japan. While his appreciation of the natural material grew, he realized that a product made with care holds a tender value for its user. As a designer he wants to create pieces that are on the border of the industrial process and craftsmanship.