SOAP Object

Approximately 4,000 years ago, glass was born by accident — sand grains and plant ash combined in fires lit by the Sumerians on beaches. Soap, too, was born from chance: animal and plant fats mixed with soda ash that had accumulated in rivers over long periods. It has been part of daily life since ancient Roman times.

Though born in different places and eras, both glass and soap share a common origin: fire, sand, water, and accident. From these same beginnings, two materials emerged — one permanent, one ephemeral.

We made the SOAP objects from thinking about this contrast. Soap changes form each time it is used, eventually disappearing completely. Glass, on the other hand, continues to exist unchanged no matter how many years pass.

This tension — between the material that vanishes and the material that endures — connects to mono no aware (もののあわれ), a Japanese concept meaning the bittersweet awareness that all things are temporary. Mono no aware is the recognition that beauty exists precisely because things do not last. The SOAP objects condense this contrast of change and permanence into a single form that fits in the palm of one's hand. They are glass shaped in the image of something that disappears — permanence made in the form of impermanence.

SOAP focuses not on a fixed form, but on the process of change itself. We make each object in our Tokyo studio using our approach to pate de verre— crushed glass mixed with color powder and pigment, fired in a kiln, then cut and ground by hand into its final soap-like shape. The characteristic soft milky blue cloudiness — rather than complete transparency — comes from the way glass and air interact during firing, a quality called devitrification.

These are objects for holding in the palm, placing alongside books, or setting on a windowsill where light can pass through. They are materials born by accident in distant times and places, now given a permanent form.