"Crack" — Street Kintsugi
To mark the second anniversary of a mystery head injury, advertising art director Joe Kibria teamed up with ceramic artist Janneke de Jong to memorialise the event, using the Japanese art form of Kintsugi.
After an agency Christmas party in 2017, Joe was found on Boundary Street in Shoreditch by a taxi driver, with blood pouring out of his ear. To this day he still does not know what happened.
“I had no recollection. There were no cameras on the street, except one that’s wiped clean every ten days. I still had my phone, keys, wallet, everything. The hospital concluded that the injury was so severe it would not simply be from falling over drunk, or even bashing my head on a wall. I was struck with something. But with what I will never know.”
Joe had been toying with the idea of Kintsugi for a while, but wasn’t sure how or where to apply it. Eventually it all clicked into place, and he chose the pavement Boundary Street as the canvas.
“I love the metaphor of fixing this old crack in the pavement as a way of healing. Giving it life and making it new.”