Learn it by making it.
Collage is simple — choose, cut, paste. Anyone can do it, at any age. And every fragment you cut carries a history: Hokusai Manga, Ainu patterns, nineteenth-century European ornament.
Choose. Cut. Paste.
Three steps, and what you make is yours alone. Your hands stay busy, and the story behind the paper comes with them.
It began with Hokusai Manga
In junior high school, my art teacher told us about Hokusai Manga and about European history. That story became the origin of my collage workshops.
Using the enormous body of drawings in Hokusai Manga as collage material, I began running history-through-making workshops at schools and companies in the Netherlands. In Japan too, people from children to adults have made their own “Hokusai Manga collage”.
For students in Japan and high schoolers in the Netherlands, Hokusai Manga became the way in to Japonisme — the unprecedented wave of enthusiasm for Japan that swept 19th-century Europe — learned while making.
Themes and formats
Collage suits any generation, and I plan and run workshops in a range of formats to fit the occasion.
Participants study the history behind the material while they work. Past sessions have produced notebooks, button badges, keychains, stickers, menko cards and bookmarks.
Themes I have built workshops around include:
- Hokusai Manga and Japonisme
- Ainu patterns
- Hans Christian Andersen’s picture books
- Racinet’s Historic Ornament in Full Color
- Photographs — the participants’ own, or mine
- Collaborations with a guest artist’s illustration work
Selected workshops
- 2025.01 Hokusai Manga Workshop @ Sakumo, Saku City Children’s Future Museum, Nagano
- 2024.11 Ainu Pattern Collage Workshop @ “Kore ga Watashi no HOKKAIDO LOVE! Matsuri”, Grand Green Osaka
- 2024.08 Dragon God Collage Notebook Workshop @ Asama International Photo Festival 2024
- 2024.07 Andersen and Collage Workshop @ BnA WALL Nihonbashi, Tokyo
- 2023.11 Workshop with Steven Van Lummel @ CEKAI O!K STORE&SPACE, Ikejiri-Ohashi
- 2021.02 Collage Workshop at a secondary school in the Netherlands
Press
In 2021 my Hokusai Manga collage workshops were featured in Levende Talen Magazine, a Dutch journal for language education.
What I bring, what you provide
I bring the collage materials, scissors, glue sticks, glue mats and masking tape for up to about 20 participants. Please provide work tables and chairs.
Budget
Fees are discussed to fit the scale and budget of the event.
As a guide, planning and running a workshop starts from ¥50,000 (negotiable; separate quote if my own collage or design work is included). Participation fees run ¥1,500–2,500 per person, of which 80% is invoiced.
Participants take home the notebook or badge they have decorated with their own collage; keychains and bookmarks are also possible.
Get in touch
I look forward to building a workshop with you that stays in the memory of everyone who takes part.