Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (New York: Penguin, 2006), 41.
In “The Storyteller: Reflections on the Works of Nikolai Leskov,” Walter Benjamin writes, “The storytelling that thrives for a long time in the milieu of work—the rural, the maritime, and the urban—is itself an artisan form of communication, as it were.” He continues, “In fact, one can go on and ask oneself whether the relationship of the storyteller to his material, human life, is not itself a craftsman's relationship…” From Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, trans. Harry Zohn (Random House, 1968).
Yanagi Soetsu, “Kitaru beki kougei” (The Crafts of the Future), in Kougei no michi (The Way of Crafts) (Tokyo: Guroriasosaete, 1929); published in Chinese by Guangxi Normal University Press, 2011. [Passages cited here and below are translated from the original Japanese by the English translator
Superhumanity, a project by e-flux Architecture at the 3rd Istanbul Design Biennial, is produced in cooperation with the Istanbul Design Biennial, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Zealand, and the Ernst Schering Foundation.
Translated from the Chinese by Andrew Maerkle.