Mottainai: The Fabric of Life – Lessons in Frugality from Traditional Japan with Diane Durston, Curator Emerita

In honor of Earth Day 2025, Curator Emerita Diane Durston will be presenting a lecture that revisits a Japanese concept centered on the message of environmental awareness. Mottainai means “nothing wasted,” an often repeated saying in Japanese with which mothers urge their children not to waste anything, not even the smallest grain of rice. As part of a yearlong series of programs on the theme of “Living in Harmony with Nature” in 2011, Portland Japanese Garden hosted a groundbreaking exhibition of bast fiber and recycled folk textiles in an exhibition entitled MOTTAINAI: The Fabric of Life. The exhibition showcased some of the remarkable ways in which the Japanese used foraged and recycled materials to cloth themselves in less affluent times, “not wasting anything” as the adage mottainai advised.