SUNSHOWER Lexus

A sunshower is rain falling while the sun still shines. In Japan, it’s said to be the sign of a fox wedding. A rare, fleeting moment when two things that shouldn’t coexist, do.

That paradox became the starting point. Curators Aric Chen and Maria Cristina Didero approached me with the theme already set, and I was drawn immediately to the strangeness of it. Light and rain together, inside and outside blurring.

We wanted the space to feel like an engawa, the threshold between inside and outside in a Japanese house. Not quite one, not quite the other. Curved screens, like paper shoji, made an enclosure without walls. Inside, the whole room behaved like a sunshower. Mist, then rain, then a sudden bright break of sun across the screens, before the rain returned.

“For Design Miami/ 2019, Lexus commissioned Nao Tamura to create an immersive installation evoking the natural phenomenon of sunshowers—rooted in the brand’s commitment to omotenashi, takumi, and the indoor-outdoor philosophy of engawa.”—Lexus, Design Miami/ 2019