Australian Wooden Boat Festival 2023: Make a Wagata-Bon Tray with Hiroshi Yamaguchi (two-day workshop)

Join the Australian Wooden Boat Festival 2023 in this special 2-day workshop to learn the art of Wagata-Bon & revive the tradition of Japanese tray making with Hiroshi Yamaguchi.

About the Workshop

This unique workshop aims to give individual and focused support for students to gain general skills and build knowledge in woodworking. Experienced makers, along with beginners, are welcome.

About Wagata-bon

The tray, called Wagata-bon or Tasuke-bon, is typically made of chestnut wood that was abundant around Wagatani, Ishikawa, Japan. Wagatani village was flooded under a dam in 1965 and the tradition of the tray making became lost. Its rim and bottom are carved out of a single piece of fresh, un-dried wood and there are vertical chisel marks that feature on the tray.

This style of tray appears to have been made by several woodworkers in the village and came in various sizes that depended on what scrap materials were available for use at the time. Very few of the original trays have been found outside the vicinity of Wagatani, so this suggests that they may have been locally bartered for food and daily necessities by the woodworkers.

Hiroshi learned this skill in 2017 in Japan under Shinichi Moriguchi. Moriguchi has been at the heart of reviving this once lost tray making craft. He has been making the tray and teaching Wagata-bon making to pass on the tradition to young makers in Japan. Hiroshi is aiming to revive this style of tray making in Australia.

For further information and to book your ticket please go here.