Portland Japanese Garden is closing its 2026 exhibition year with colour, texture and quiet wonder. Weaving Time: NUNO – Textiles of Tradition and Transformation, on view in the Pavilion and Calvin and Mayho Tanabe Galleries through February 14, 2027, showcases the work of NUNO, the renowned Tokyo textile studio founded in 1984.
Led by design director Reiko Sudō, NUNO has created thousands of original textiles by partnering with artisans, small mills and factories in about 120 communities across Japan. The Garden exhibition features more than 50 types of textiles, including hand-woven silk made with razor-thin strips of silver-leaf washi paper from Kyoto’s Tango region — a painstaking flat-foil technique known as hikibaku.
Inside, eight fabric cubes hang and turn gently from the ceiling, each representing a different textile region of Japan, and visitors can touch the fabrics themselves at an interactive wall. Outside, a translucent white noren curtain flutters beneath the Pavilion eaves, while glowing byōbu folding screens, made with master bamboo woodworker Chūzō Tozawa, echo rain and condensation on a window.
It is a joyful celebration of heritage, sustainability and the handmade — and a peaceful reason to return to the Garden this fall and winter.
Photo: Arthur Hitchcock / Portland Japanese Garden
