Harmony v02
Manufactured by Dahyeon Yoo
South Korea, 2025
Vegetable-tanned leather

Measurements
28 × 13 × 14h cm
11 × 5 × 5,5h in

Details
Hand-woven, using twisted vegetable-tanned leather strands.

About
Harmony v02 belongs to the Harmony Series, in which designer Dahyeon Yoo reinterprets traditional Korean straw-weaving and plaiting techniques from the Joseon Dynasty. Instead of straw, she employs vegetable-tanned leather, a living material that she soaks, twists, and transforms into fine strands before weaving them into sculptural forms.
Each piece combines a woven base and lid, balancing roughness and smoothness, simplicity and complexity. The process embraces the irregularities and natural wrinkles of leather, highlighting the traces of the maker’s hand and the organic origin of the material. While each strand of leather is fragile on its own, together they form a resilient structure —a poetic metaphor for strength through unity.
By bridging heritage craftsmanship and contemporary design, Harmony v02 embodies Yoo’s exploration of balance in a rapidly shifting world. It is both an object of quiet strength and a meditation on the harmony between tradition and innovation.

Harmony Series
The Harmony Series reinterprets traditional Korean straw weaving and plaiting techniques from the Joseon Dynasty using vegetable-tanned leather. By soaking and twisting the leather into fine strands and delicately hand-weaving them, the artist creates sculptural forms that explore a rich contrast between roughness and smoothness, simplicity and complexity. Each work in the series consists of an intricately woven base and lid, whose texture carries a sense of timeless craftsmanship. Though each leather strand is fragile on its own, the woven structure becomes unexpectedly strong and resilient —embodying a quiet strength through unity and tension. The series reflects a pursuit of inner balance and harmony in a rapidly changing world. Wrinkles, irregularities, and subtle imperfections in the surface are not hidden but embraced, serving as visible traces of the material’s natural origin and the artist’s hand.

Biography
Dahyeon Yoo (b. 1990s, South Korea) is a contemporary designer and artist whose work investigates the intersection of traditional Korean craft and modern material experimentation. Educated in design and craft disciplines, Yoo has developed a distinctive practice centered on reinterpreting ancestral weaving and plaiting methods through unconventional materials such as vegetable-tanned leather.
Her Harmony Series reflects a deep engagement with Korean cultural heritage, particularly the straw-weaving traditions of the Joseon Dynasty, while addressing contemporary themes of resilience, impermanence, and balance. By embracing the imperfections and natural qualities of leather, Yoo emphasizes the dialogue between fragility and strength, individual gesture and collective structure.
Positioned at the crossroads of craft and sculpture, Yoo’s works resonate with global conversations around sustainability, materiality, and the preservation of intangible heritage. Her practice not only honors the past but also proposes new directions for contemporary design rooted in cultural memory and handcraft.