An exhibition at the 21_21 Design Sight gallery in Tokyo shows how human excrement and other types of waste can become more valuable to people and planet.

On show at 21_21 until 16 February 2025, Pooploop calls for waste to be treated as a useful resource rather than something to be “flushed away”.

Koro Ihara’s sculptures are made from animal faeces coated with urushi lacquer

Key exhibits in the show include sculptor Koro Ihara‘s animal sculptures made from lacquered faeces, Studio Swine’s hair accessories made from human hair and Hideyuki Yamano’s XO badges made from found objects.

The poop emoji makes an appearance, along with other examples of excrement featured in graphic imagery from across history.

Studio Swine’s Hair Highway accessories are made from human hair

Exhibition curators Taku Satoh and Shinichi Takemura wanted to promote a more circular attitude towards waste.

“People seldom have regard for the next stage of things that are washed away or tossed in the trash,” said Satoh. “As soon as an entity exits our body, though it was part of us until just a moment before, we deem it dirty.”

The exhibition includes products made from upcycled waste

“Essentially, there is no such thing as either waste or excrement,” continued Takemura.

“In the wildness of nature, dead bodies or animal droppings become resources for other life forms.”

Hideyuki Yamano makes his XO badges from random objects

The show extends across two of 21_21 Design Sight’s galleries.

The first is a kind of archive, featuring more than 700 objects and artefacts that refer to “waste and excrement”.

It includes 190 different types of soil, a collection of fossils and shells, various exhibits relating to toilets, different types of body waste, products made from excrement and objects related to fermentation.

The second gallery explores how design can change our relationship with waste, showcasing projects that use waste materials in inventive ways.

Yuma Kano’s Rust Harvest tiles are made with sewage-treatment sludge

Tokyo designer Yuma Kano presents various material experiments, including his terrazzo-like ForestBank material made from waste wood and his Rust Harvest tiles made with sewage-treatment sludge.

Another installation by Ihara features wall panels made of earthworm castings, while ceramicist Toshio Matsui presents a project giving new life to broken and discarded ceramics.

Koro Ihara created wall panels from earthworm castings

Other highlights include garments by fashion designer Amachi Yoshimoto that are designed to look like discarded skins and plant-based dyes by self-proclaimed forager Katsunobu Yoshida.

The curators hope to show how waste can become a valuable resource, as it has been in the past.

Amachi Yoshimoto designed his Presence Of garments to look like discarded skins

“Humans are not the only, nor even the first creatures to influence Earth’s operation,” said Takemura. “But we are the first with an awareness that allows us to direct future change.”

“We are now on a journey to rediscover the ‘intelligence’ represented in the planet’s biological systems.”

Sainenshow is a project by Toshio Matsui giving new life to old ceramics

“We now begin the partnership with the many entities in and around ourselves, besides upgrading our own industrial circular economy,” he concluded.

Pooploop is not the first exhibition to centre around new uses for excrement. Rotterdam’s Nieuwe Instituut explores the idea in its various New Store pop-ups, while Italy’s Museo Della Merda, or Shit Museum, is entirely dedicated to the potential uses of poop.

The exhibition photography is by Keizo Kioku.

Pooploop runs from 27 September 2024 to 16 February 2025 at 21_21 Design Sight in Tokyo. See Dezeen Events Guide for more architecture and design events around the world.

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