Revitalization

IDEA CONTESTS: Our Japan Traditional Craft Revitalization Contests search for exceptional project ideas from individuals with outstanding talent, track records and passion, and provide them with a broad and significant support package.

Revitalizing Traditional Japanese Crafts for the 21st Century

Revitalizing Japan’s living craft heritage. JapanCraft21 accelerates impact through a series of Traditional Craft Revitalization Contests, each designed to catalyze one craft’s success in the 21st century. We identify exceptional creators with compelling ideas, proven skill, and passion—and equip them with funding, mentorship, and an ecosystem of support.

Our inaugural contest awards ¥5,000,000 (US$50,000) in targeted funding and hands-on mentorship from experts in business, design, product development, and marketing.

Japan’s craft culture—refined over centuries—faces rapid decline. Masterworks struggle to compete with low-skill imports; lacquerware sales fall; few young artisans replace retiring bamboo basket makers; and traditional wood joinery is rarely taught. The broader ecosystem—toolmakers, dye blenders, brush makers, stencil cutters—has also thinned.

We began by addressing wood joinery. Kyoto’s machiya townhouses have fallen from roughly 100,000 to about 40,000. In response, in 2019 we co-founded a training school that offers scholarships to working tradespeople. Our first cohort of six graduated as carpenters capable of building without nails. We now run courses in joinery, bamboo-and-mud wall construction for plasterers, and advanced Japanese garden building.

Join us. Japan’s crafts are a shared global treasure. Your support helps ensure these skills not only survive—but thrive—for generations to come.

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An Opportunity to Contribute

"The contest challenged me to think bigger and more positively than I ever did before."

2021 Contest Winner

The Ronnie Prize

The trophy given to each Ronnie Prize winner is created by renowned Japanese sculptor, Kan Yasuda. The work crafted from white statuary marble is entitled, Tempi, meaning the "mysteries of heaven."

The RONNIE Prize is awarded to the first place winner in our Japanese Traditional Craft Revitalization Contests, and consists of 5 million yen ($50,000) in project funding for the winning project aiming to revitalize a craft for the 21st Century. The name of the prize was chosen to honor the memory of Ron Beimel, a young man who had a great passion for life and the Japanese culture and pursued his dreams with extraordinary focus, making extraordinary accomplishments during his short lifetime. We hope that the memory of this young man will inspire our contest winner to reach high and to attain their goals.

The 1st place Ronnie Prize winner receives both ¥5,000,000 ($50,000) of targeted funding toward achieving his/her vision as well as the active support of a mentor group of experts in fields such as business, design, product development, and marketing. The ten finalists become members of our Craft Leaders Council, a dynamic group of crafts people whom we support with marketing, net-working and assistance in building peer support.

We are providing the following for our current Craft Leaders Council (the ten contest finalists, including the Ronnie Prize Winner):A bi-lingual website presence for each person to show their works and explain their craft processes.
A Showcase Gallery where each member submits a unique new work (funded by JapanCraft21) that clearly shows their talents. Those works, along with images of each member at work in their workshops, will be professionally photographed and featured on a dedicated online Showcase Gallery. This online gallery will initially be exclusively available to a select group of gallery owners, museum curators, interior designers and architects located around the world.
A quarterly meeting for the group to encourage peer support and enlist the support of our team of professional advisors.
Transportation and lodging for our annual Awards Ceremony