Kazuaki Harada

Before anything

As a young man I hoped to turn some talent of mine into a livelihood. Nothing quite showed up, so I ended up at a printing company.

The work was monotonous. I tried sports and guitar to fill in the edges. None of it stuck.

Then a friend lent me a book: works by Akio Nishida, the pioneer of automata in Japan. Tiny mechanical scenes driven by cams and gears. I thought — I could try that.

Falling in

My first piece copied the book. From the second, I designed my own.

Making was a joy in itself, and showing what I'd made — hearing someone say "how did you do that?" — that was the other joy. I kept building automata around a full-time job.

After two and a half years I couldn't shake it: I wanted this to be my work.

To the UK — studying with Matt Smith

Around that time I fell for the work of the British automata artist Matt Smith. I wrote to ask about an apprenticeship. His reply: the workshop was too small for a full apprentice, but I was welcome to visit.

So I applied to a Master's course at the art school in his town. On days without class, I'd go to the workshop. Over time Matt took me on as a resident student.

For a year I studied at the university and at his workshop.

Back to Aio — the studio, and everything after

I came home to Japan and opened a studio, Nizosha, in Aio, Yamaguchi. My wife Megumi joined, and the daily making began.

It's an unusual line of work, so from time to time the local press would drop by. Every mention brought a few new commissions. Japan was in the middle of a craft revival then, and between craft fairs and gallery shows, the studio slowly found its feet.

The work didn't stay only with automata. One year I built an electronic shooting game and a radio-control robot game for an exhibition, and the response was different — louder, more physical. The next year an exhibition of games about the culture and history of Yamaguchi went well, and games became part of what I do.

The pleasure of "look what I made" widened into the pleasure of "come and play."

The museum, and the cottage

When an exhibition ends, the pieces come back to the studio. I'd rather they be seen and played with than sit in storage. So we built musée AUTOMATON on the same plot.

Once the museum opened, people started travelling from other prefectures to see the work — but there weren't many places nearby to stay. So we built nest AUTOMATON, the cottage, next to the museum. Trees around it, quiet at night.

Automata, games, the museum, the cottage, the cafe — I chose the singular name AUTOMATON to say that all of it is one work, still being built.