Anima Low Cup, Model Big Dark Brown
Manufactured by Kosuke Araki
Japan, 2023
Food waste, urushi (Japanese lacquer)

Measurements
Approx. 8 cm diameter x 9h cm
Approx. 3,1 in diameter x 3,5h in

Edition
Unique Piece

About – Anima Series
Anima is a series of tableware handcrafted from food waste and urushi, the traditional Japanese lacquer. Conceived as a continuation of Araki’s earlier project Food Waste Ware (2013), Anima inherits its core message: to question our everyday habits and reconsider food not as a disposable commodity but as life itself.
Each piece is made by combining dried food remnants—such as peels, rinds, shells, and bones—with urushi, which not only gives structural strength and waterproof qualities but also adds a luminous surface that shifts from deep dark brown to warm tones under light. This dialogue between material and finish emphasizes the transformation of discarded matter into cherished, functional objects.
By reincarnating wasted lives into new forms, Araki pays tribute to the food that sustains us while revealing the hidden potential within what is usually overlooked. Anima thus becomes more than tableware: it is a meditation on consumption, waste, and our interdependence with nature.

Biography
Kosuke Araki (b. 1988, Japan) is a Japanese designer whose practice lies at the intersection of sustainability, craftsmanship, and contemporary design. His work focuses on transforming discarded materials—particularly organic food waste—into everyday objects that encourage us to reconsider our relationship with nature.
In 2013, he launched Food Waste Ware, a project that documented two years of food waste produced in his London household—around 315 kg of peels, rinds, shells, bones, and other inedible parts—and transformed it into tableware. This project became the foundation for Anima (2023), a series of handcrafted pieces made from food waste combined with urushi, traditional Japanese lacquer. Urushi provides durability, waterproofness, antibacterial properties, and a refined sheen, while oxidation creates a dark brown, almost black surface that reveals warm tones under strong light.
The concept of Anima is rooted in “reincarnating wasted lives in new forms” as a tribute to the food that sustains human existence, while also addressing the vast amount of waste generated in urban life. For Araki, urushi represents both tradition and contemporaneity—an ancient material that can endure for millennia but also decompose naturally under UV light, embodying the cyclical rhythms of nature.
His works have been presented internationally, including at the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Berlin and the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur in Switzerland, as part of Food Revolution 5.0 – Design for the Society of Tomorrow. Through his practice, Araki proposes design as more than function or aesthetics: a poetic and critical tool to reflect on