A detour through the artist's mind

A scarlet fish head, the silhouette of a tree and a burned-out hole surrounded by scribbled thoughts may at first sight appear to inhabit different worlds.

Art notes: As a center piece to the MoMA Design Store in Omotesando, the "Detour" tunnel houses 50 Moleskine notebooks showcasing the imaginations of architects, designers, writers, directors and artists. COURTESY OF MOLESKINE

But upon closer inspection, the starting point for all these creations is the same: a pristine white notepad.

The joys of scrawling, painting, drawing and doodling on the empty white pages of a new notepad have long been a well-documented springboard for many a creative mind.

Now, a new exhibition in Tokyo is showcasing the imaginations of 50 architects, designers, writers, directors and artists, each of whom were given an identical blank notepad to transform into a projection of their creative vision.

Not that it was any old notepad: these are Moleskine notepads, the iconic Italian stationary company famous for its sleek black hardback creations, inspired by the role of the notepad among legends ranging from Pablo Picasso to Ernest Hemingway.

The exhibition, titled "Detour," is the latest Tokyo leg of a global tour exploring the imaginative results of creative minds in cities around the world when confronted with such a notepad.

Launched in 2006 in London, the event has since expanded to notepad exhibitions among native creatives in cities including New York and Paris, with Tokyo opening last week and Berlin scheduled to launch next month.

Raffaella Guidobono DANIELLE DEMETRIOU

In Japan, the setting of the exhibition is a specially designed modern white "tunnel" in the heart of the MoMA Design Store on the third floor of the black GYRE Building in Omotesando.

And the roll call of mostly Japanese participants is impressive: from product designer Naoto Fukasawa, textile designer Reiko Sudo and Muji creative Kenya Hara to architect Toyo Ito, anime director Mamoru Oshii and film director Naomi Kawase.

Standing in the center of the store is a white mesh and Perspex rectangular "tunnel" which houses the notepads — and testimony to the skill of its designers, Zetalab, the structure blends in with the setting while creating an intimate quiet space once inside.

As leafing through a notepad is one of the highlights of such a piece of stationary, visitors are each handed a single white glove at the entrance enabling them to touch all but the most delicate of exhibits showcased in clear boxes.

And the end result is as eclectic as it is intimate: from the screaming fluorescent "NO" layered across pages of kanji as presented by textile designer Junichi Arai to the scrapbook notes, images and annotations of architect Kengo Kuma's thoughts.

Speaking at the opening, the artist Erina Matsui, whose notepad interpretation consists of a sculptural red fish head layered with intricate colored details, says: "The fish head is a self-portrait. Everybody at school said I looked like a fish and so that has become a way I see and present myself."

She adds: "I have a big passion for these notepads. When I studied in Finland, I saw that lots of students used them as their diaries. I love the strong paper in particular as it's so good to use with watercolors and oil paints."

For Raffaella Guidobono, the curator of the "Detour" exhibition, the notebook is the starting point of something surprising and different in every city where she has staged the show.

"Everybody can take a blank piece of paper and make something from it and it will always be something different," she says.

"The idea is to transform the everyday into an illuminating treasure. It presents a selection of ingenious uses of Moleskine notepads as well as the antithesis of what visitors may have thought a notepad could be."

And as the exhibition takes detours through key cities through the world, the show highlights the identity disparities in creative thinking in different geographical locations, according to Guidobono.

"Every city has had its own identity," she says. "Tokyo is a very hectic city but it can also be quite slow compared to other urban places. There is a sense of this pause along with the energy of the city in many of the works in the Tokyo show.

"The notepads in Berlin, for example, are more industrial and reflect the electronics scene of the city. Tokyo is a more crafted Zen show."

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