An Eel Wrestles a Baby Octopus in the Fantastical Soft Sculptures by Hiné Mizushima

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For years, I’ve admired the “slow craft­ing” of Hiné Mizushi­ma. Her soft sculp­tures are often pre­sent­ed like sci­en­tif­ic spec­i­mens but with a fan­tas­ti­cal twist.

The lat­est series was for a solo exhi­bi­tion in Tokyo that took place in Novem­ber of 2019. For the occa­sion, Hiné put sea crea­tures under bell jars and iden­ti­fied them with a label stat­ing their name, num­ber, where they were found, and who they were col­lect­ed by (Hiné, of course). The felt crea­tures look any­thing but ordi­nary and are adorned with bead­ing, cro­chet, and more. Some of my favorites include two char­ac­ters in one jar that are wrestling with each other—or in one case, a mon­ster clam stick­ing its long tongue on a baby squid.

I was in Tokyo just a cou­ple of weeks after Hiné’s exhi­bi­tion end­ed. Too bad—I would’ve loved to see these pieces in per­son! Fol­low Hiné on Insta­gram to see her work in progress. She also sells prints of her work on Etsy.