Born in Shizuoka, Japan, Akiko Hirai (1970) graduated from the Department of Psychology at the Aichi Gakuin University in Nagoya in 1993, to then travel around the world. During her second visit to England, she deepened her knowledge of pottery and got her BA in Ceramics from the University of Westminster (2002) and Central St. Martins (2003). After graduation, she worked as the Head of Ceramics at Kensington and Chelsea College and founded her studio in Stoke Newington within a creative collective.
Hirai creates sculptural vessels and functional ware, combining balance and imperfection, irregularity and asymmetry, and embracing the aesthetic and conceptual values of wabi-sabi. During her career, she has been exhibiting extensively in Japan, Europe, the United Kingdom and the US. Her work is included in permanent collections, including the Keramikmuseum Westerwald (Westerwald Ceramic Museum), the National Museum of Ireland, Dublin, and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Akiko was shortlisted for the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize in 2019.
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