After eleven months of weaving, the first tapestry of the hanging “The imaginary of Hayao Miyazaki in Aubusson tapestry” will be revealed to the public this Friday, March 25.
The end of the trade will be the opportunity to discover this monumental work for the first time.
Taken from the film “Princess Mononoké”, this tapestry, 5 meters high and 4.6 meters wide, can then be observed on site, in particular during a special weekend dedicated to Japan on March 26 and 27, including the enticing program can be found here.
She will then join the Miyazaki space specially created at the Cité all month of April and all summer, it is announced.
Live the fall live
For those most impatient to discover it, the event will be broadcast live on the Youtube channel of the Cité (and below) this Friday, with the program at 2:45 p.m. », then at 3:30 p.m., its unveiling in the auditorium of the Cité Internationale de la Tapisserie.
In the scene depicted, taken from the animated film “Princess Mononoke” – a fabulous ode to nature released in 1997 – a boar possessed by a demon injured the young Ashitaka in the arm. In turn taken by the curse, the young warrior is called to an imminent death if he does not manage to find a way to get rid of it. Accompanied by his mount Yakul, he sets off towards the East in the hope of defeating this threat which weighs on him but also on the whole country and finds refuge in a cedar wood where he dips his arm, already eaten away by the curse, in cool water.
It’s tomorrow!!! 03/25 2:45 PM 2.45 pm LIVE coverage on Youtube | Unveiling 1st #Aubusson #tapestry of the #HayaoMiyazaki series @hayami_official @Studioghiblifr @JP_GHIBLI @GhibliUSA @ButaGhibli @GhibliFR @AmbJaponFR https://t.co/b9Jc5Wdlub pic.twitter.com/q28Ip9azeI
— International City of Tapestry (@CiteTapisserie) March 24, 2022
A titanic job
Three weavers from the Aubussonnais Guillot workshop, the father, the mother and the son, got down to work, between eight and ten hours a day for a year to make the image as vivid as possible. “We are on a project carried out in multiple textures, that is to say that we will use several textures according to the needs of the work. For example, when it comes to rendering bark, we’ll work with a hollow, with different textures, either coarser or finer, which will allow us to give the optical illusion of having bark on a tree. It’s played at a few millimeters but it’s enough to give the illusion. We research the colors upstream, we work with different materials, with terry wool also for the mosses on this tree. We innovate and we think outside the box!” Patrick Guillot confided to France Bleu at the very beginning of the work which followed that of the production of the cardboard.
Choice of yarns, formats, colors… It was all about patience and meticulousness behind the scenes…
A partnership with the venerable Studio Ghibli
The Cité internationale de la Tapisserie in Aubusson has in fact signed an agreement with the Japanese animation studio Ghibli for the production of five tapestries from images taken from the films of director Hayao Miyazaki.
Listed as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity in 2009 by Unesco, the Aubusson tapestry today aims to reach a young audience and reconnect with the tradition of narrative tapestry. “The idea of large hangings is really to renew the image that the general public has of tapestry,” explained for France Bleu Jean-Philippe Trapp, project manager for economic development at the Cité internationale de la tapestry in Paris. Aubusson.
In 2017, the institution had already ordered an event hanging, “Aubusson weaves Tolkien”, made up of thirteen tapestries and a carpet, based on illustrations by the British writer.
By partnering with Ghibli studios, the Cité de la Tapisserie is once again offering itself a great international publicity stunt. The NHK, Japanese public television even came to shoot a report in the city of Aubusson located halfway between Clermont-Ferrand and Limoges.
Spirited Away next film in the spotlight
The second tapestry of the tapestry “The imagination of Hayao Miyazaki in Aubusson tapestry” will be taken from “Spirited Away” (2001). It will begin to be woven next September. The team chose the scene of the banquet where the heroine Chihiro and the Faceless face each other, a strange solitary and possessive chimera. And the weavings will then follow one another so that the hanging will be completed by the end of 2023.
The other scenes will be taken from the films Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) and, for two separate tapestries, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1994).