Abstract
Nishijin weaving is one of Japan’s most renowned traditional textile practices, originating over 560 years ago when weaving artisans regrouped in Kyoto’s Nishijin district. Since then, its techniques have been continuously inherited and adapted through successive cycles of transformation and decline. Japan’s traditional dyeing and weaving industries, exemplified by Nishijin, are characterised by a hybrid positioning between craft and industry, supported by a historically distributed division of labour. This system, while fostering deep expertise, faces stagnation due to institutional disconnects. This paper addresses this challenge by advancing Institutional Co-Design (ICD) as a two-part mechanism that couples digital mediation with co-ordination routed through the orimoto (contractor-cum-merchant, CCM). Digital tools translate between embodied craft knowledge and computational environments, while CCM-centred oversight anchors those translations in contracts, trust networks, and quality control. Through a Research through Design approach embedded in long-term fieldwork with Nishijin actors, we identify where mediation occurs, what is translated, and how loom-native workflows are preserved. The approach clarifies Nishijin’s supplier–customer division of labour and its governance implications through a concise schematic, and articulates sustainability considerations by addressing livelihoods as well as the material and energy burdens of digital workflows. Our contribution is twofold: first, a situated model for digitally mediated heritage production that enhances craft rather than replacing it; second, a transferable ICD framework for regional craft industries seeking innovation without institutional erosion. By reframing Nishijin weaving as a co-designed socio-technical ecosystem, we show how heritage industries can adapt under evolving conditions without losing their embodied cultural value.
Keywords
Institutional co-design; Jacquard weaving; Digital integration; Division of labour
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.1019
Citation
Ueda, K.,and Bine, R.(2025) Institutional Co-Design for Nishijin Jacquard Weaving: Digital Mediation across a Networked Craft Field, in Chang, C.-Y., and Hsu, Y. (eds.), IASDR 2025: Design Next, 02-05 December, Taiwan. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.1019
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Track 11 - Culture and Craft Design for Regenerative Practices
Institutional Co-Design for Nishijin Jacquard Weaving: Digital Mediation across a Networked Craft Field
Nishijin weaving is one of Japan’s most renowned traditional textile practices, originating over 560 years ago when weaving artisans regrouped in Kyoto’s Nishijin district. Since then, its techniques have been continuously inherited and adapted through successive cycles of transformation and decline. Japan’s traditional dyeing and weaving industries, exemplified by Nishijin, are characterised by a hybrid positioning between craft and industry, supported by a historically distributed division of labour. This system, while fostering deep expertise, faces stagnation due to institutional disconnects. This paper addresses this challenge by advancing Institutional Co-Design (ICD) as a two-part mechanism that couples digital mediation with co-ordination routed through the orimoto (contractor-cum-merchant, CCM). Digital tools translate between embodied craft knowledge and computational environments, while CCM-centred oversight anchors those translations in contracts, trust networks, and quality control. Through a Research through Design approach embedded in long-term fieldwork with Nishijin actors, we identify where mediation occurs, what is translated, and how loom-native workflows are preserved. The approach clarifies Nishijin’s supplier–customer division of labour and its governance implications through a concise schematic, and articulates sustainability considerations by addressing livelihoods as well as the material and energy burdens of digital workflows. Our contribution is twofold: first, a situated model for digitally mediated heritage production that enhances craft rather than replacing it; second, a transferable ICD framework for regional craft industries seeking innovation without institutional erosion. By reframing Nishijin weaving as a co-designed socio-technical ecosystem, we show how heritage industries can adapt under evolving conditions without losing their embodied cultural value.