Nike Air Abuku

by Wieden+Kenedy Tokyo Lab

Project Description

The shoes we received were AIR MAX 360, which emphasizes the air in the soles more than any other NIKE shoe. So we decided to create something based on the concept of air, the main quality of this model. What we did was keep the soles filled with air as is, but take off the upper part of the shoe and use it to mold a clear material into that shape. This became an aquarium for goldfish, a representative aquarium fish in Japan. What you can see from the relationship between a goldfish and air in this microcosm, a shoe, is the human society and the microcosm that contains it. It’s the relationship between the earth/nature and creatures, and the correlation between athletes and NIKE, who contributes to the characteristics of the human body by giving air to shoes. That is the thinking behind the name of this art piece, the ABUKU (Japanese “BUBBLE”). We hope that the people who see this small aquarium built on NIKE Air will stop to think about the artificial/natural environments that surround us and the connection between humans and other living creatures. Credit: Akio Iida, Daisuke Maki, Michiyo Ooi, Kuki Akaeda, Genki Ito, Takeshi Kogahara