Voice of Nature: Chiaki Maki’s Turn Towards Textile as Art
A shift is underway in the work of Chiaki Maki. Long recognised for textiles made for daily use, she now presents her practice in explicitly artistic terms for the first time. The exhibition Voice of Nature, on view from April 2–12, 2026 at Hillside Terrace in Tokyo’s Daikanyama district, marks this transition with measured clarity.
Indigo dye vat preparation in the workshop courtyard.
Since founding Maki Textile Studio in 1990, Maki has worked across Japan and India, grounding her approach in the fundamentals of spinning, dyeing and weaving by hand. A decisive development came in 2012 with the establishment of ganga maki in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas. Here, textile production begins long before the loom: plants are cultivated for fibre and dye, silk is hand-reeled, and colour emerges through slow processes such as indigo fermentation. Making is inseparable from environment.
Above: Chiaki preparing Ramie fibre. Below: Silk dyed in Indigo and hands tinted blue.
This context is essential to understanding Voice of Nature. The exhibition gathers approximately 40 works—many shown in Japan for the first time—created from materials including banana fibre, wild silk and Himalayan wool. Removed from their functional context, they are presented as autonomous works. Yet they retain a strong sense of origin...
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Image Credits:
Lead: Chiaki Maki with a Double-Weave Textile. Materials: Hand-Spun Silk, Banana Fibre (Bashō); Dye: Indigo.
All further images as credited in captions and courtesy of Chiaki Maki.