MANONIK

“For the Luminaries.”

/ Philosophy

Manonik hand-crafts humanistic garments piece by piece, for the brave luminaries shining our ways forward.

Guided by Mother Nature, Manonik creates artwear that respect and embrace “humanness” – the qualities of being human – using environmentally-conscious and innovative materials curated locally and internationally. Every cloth and garment, hand-crafted for life, embodies critical thinking and a thoughtful rebellion against the norm. Manonik single-handedly weaves together a proposal for a more sustainable, humanistic way of creation by deconstructing and reassembling traditional and contemporary textile-making processes with a focus on the utilization of the hands. Each creation is innately one-of-a-kind and counter-culture, amalgamating and blurring the boundaries between contemporary textile art, craft, and couture in its original sense.

/ Aesthetic Language
Manonik’s aesthetic language is inevitably informed by Japanese and American cultural ideologies: essentialism, utilitarianism, wabi-sabi, respect for nature, pursuit of happiness, equality, egalitarianism, individualism, etc. It’s also guided by his unique perspectives that formed through the experiences of living as a multi-layered minority in both countries, as well as an immigrant who exists outside normalized national boundaries. The sense of “Otherness” – transcending and freeing himself from the arbitrary identities that are socially constructed and enforced – manifests inherently in Manonik's creations and is the very seed of his purpose.

/ Nomenclature

The name, Manonik, is a made-up word whose stem is “la mano" ("the hand' in Italian), anchored by a suffixn ”-nik" which is an agent noun in Slavic languages (the "-er" equivalent in English). The letters "n, i, k' are spontaneously extracted from the artist's name, Yoshiyuki.

/ Processes

At Manonik, traditional and contemporary textile-making techniques are unraveled and creatively reconfigured to meet our unique and strict standards. The predominant techniques used at the Studio include:
- hand-weaving
- three-dimensional fully-formed sculptural weaving (artist’s primary research and proprietary method)
- manual machine knitting
- spontaneous hand-crocheting
- macrame/knotting
- hand-stitching
- natural dyeing
- zero/minimal-waste patterning

Unlike the contemporary trend to pursue simplicity and perfection, Manonik explores the idea of humanistic forms – forms imbued with imperfections and spontaneity, allowing the subconscious and uncontrollable variables to influence the final form and aesthetics.

/ Materials

Materials are the very foundation of every creation at Manonik; They dictate what can be made; They also inform the final aesthetic. The spontaneous nature of Manonik’s design process brings out the artistic expression of each material and its beauty. Our goal, from the inception, has been unwavering: to source the most artisanal, sustainable fibers produced locally and within the U.S. and supplement the material diversity with regenerative, innovative fibers that originate around the world. Ultimately, we aim to contribute to the revival of fiber/textile production in the American Northeast.

/ The Artist

Yoshiyuki Minami is the artist behind Manonik. His work has been recognized through the residencies at the Museum of Arts and Design and Textile Arts Center, and was, most recently, exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion” (2022).

Yoshiyuki was born and raised in the countryside of Japan where tradition and innovation, technology and nature coexisted hand in hand. He holds a bachelor's degree in economic sociology from the University of Michigan, a critical study on our economic activities and systems. After a decade of working in advertising as a graphic designer and art director, he embarked on an artistic journey as Manonik to reconnect with his “self” and to explore the idea of art/fashion/craft as a mechanism to bring change to our society, the purpose that was engrained deeply throughout his education. Manonik is an art practice and art therapy, and thought the making, Yoshiyuki aims to rethink and better the established systems of thought and creation, specifically around the production of fiber and textiles. He believes, in order to improve a system, that we need to: 1) challenge the system and its culture by rejecting the status-quo and the pressure to conform to its "norm"; and 2) implement small-scale changes to the internal workings of the system to rethread it from within. Yoshiyuki is a proponent of the idea that textiles and the arts possess the undeniable power to reshape our society for the good of all humanity.

Singer 31-15, a monolithic iron head, manufactured in 1912.