Cool Hunting

Curated by product designer Naoto Fukasawa, one of four directors at the museum (the other three are Issey Miyake, Taku Satoh and Noriko Kawakami), the first exhibition at Tokyo's new design forum 21_21 Design Sight, called "Chocolate," aims to explore ways of seeing the world from a design point of view. Collaborating with a wide range of artists and designers, Fukasawa selected and commissioned works not only made of chocolate (keys, batteries, credit cards, nails, etc.), but anything resembling or loosely-connected with this bittersweet confection has also been included.

An installation shows the yearly consumption of chocolate per person with Switzerland (11.3 kg) coming first followed by Germany (10.5 kg) and Belgium (10.3 kg). Gold rings in this exhibit are decorated not with diamond or emeralds, but with shiny chocolate wrappers rolled into small balls. A shower room is tiled with chocolate. And large-format portraits of poor cocoa bean farmers are stark contrasts to the otherwise sweet and happy world of chocolate.

As a souvenir, you can buy a chocolate t-shirt by Final Home wrapped to look exactly like a bar of chocolate. This is not their first choco-product. Also check our their chocolate candle here.

by Jens Jensen