Alternative Artefacts Danto

Alternative Artefacts Danto, also known as A.a. Danto, is the contemporary brand of Danto, one of Japan’s oldest mass producers of tiles, based since 1885 on Awajishima in the Seto Inland Sea. The brand treats tiles as interior objects and is creatively directed by Teruhiro Yanagihara Studio.

Its history begins with Minpei Kashu, the Awajishima intellectual who studied pottery under a Kyoto master and opened the island’s first kiln in 1832, giving rise to Minpei-yaki ceramics; in 1885 those kilns became Danto, which made its first tile around 1890 and reached full-scale production in 1908. A.a. Danto draws on that heritage — skilled craftsmanship, experimental soil compositions and the flexibility of mass production — and invites international designers, architects and artists to reinterpret it in the two factories on the island.