Oshinsha｜奥心舎

Welcome to Oshinsha! It is run by Communa Inc., based in Sendai, Japan. As a marketing/translation/design company, we’ve worked with local craft producers in a variety of contexts, such as helping develop new products and supporting them in joining an international trade show in France. We’ve also worked together on tackling the issue of how to pass down tradition. Working with these studios inspired us to get into the world of handmade, artisanal crafts ourselves. What fascinates us most about these pieces isn’t their cultural value or a “sense of mission” to preserve them. Rather, it’s the unique communication these objects can create. With stories of their makers and, importantly, of their users—your stories. From craftspeople, we often hear stories that change the way we look at our own community. Similarly, we love hearing the stories of people from around the world who have come a long way in search of these kinds of crafts. Oshinsha is an attempt to express this aspect of craft communication in the form of a global store. We’ve selected craft items with simple, material aesthetics that somewhat go beyond individual creativity. With or without practical function, we think they’ll blend well with your everyday life. With crafts as vehicles, perhaps we are story-brokers, bridging the makers with the users. After all, we believe that this kind of story-exchange is what makes crafts special, enduring, and fulfilling to live with for all of us.