Minnanotenohanashi

Waterman

An inclusive performance ‘Minnano Teno Hanashi’ which translates ‘1000 hands story’ in Japanese, gave people the opportunity to take part in a collective creation of live poetry making. The inspiration was drawn from a 1920’s surrealist method of co-drawing called ‘cadavre exquis’, in which one will draw an image on a paper, fold the paper to partially conceal the form, and then pass the paper to another to resume the drawing. The performance was a poetry version of ‘cadavre exquis’. Staged at a department store in Tokyo, the week-long event brought in the general public to take part in the unpredictable poetry creation. Each person added their own phrases to the ones that others have written. The event was also streamed online, and tweets by digital users were passed onto those in-person to resume adding their own words. The nonsense sentence making was a creative way to mark how Waterman, a pioneer in fountain pens, has built their identity as more than just a writing tool but also as a creative brand.