Making "Old Bottles" More Interesting

Introducing "Ideas to Make ○○ More Interesting" from Dentsu Inc.'s young art directors. This time, Ai Kono presents "Ideas to Make Old Bottles More Interesting."

Breathing life into old bottles with stories

──Why did you choose the theme "Making Old Bottles More Interesting"?

Kono: I absolutely love antique markets and flea markets. I'm fascinated by the memories and stories that old objects hold, and the tactile feel you just don't get with new things. Among these, I especially adore old bottles and glassware. Old bottles often have imperfections—warps, irregularities, air bubbles—due to the manufacturing techniques of the time. It's incredibly charming. Imagining what might have been inside them is also a joy. Seeing them now, empty and displayed at an antique market, transcending time and space, makes me feel their narrative.

So this time, to breathe life into these empty old bottles, I imagined them as "birds" – similar in size and with that same plump body shape. Inside each bottle is a real feather. The head is made of ceramic. They are actual bird size. I made mallards, cockatiels, egrets, crows, and guinea fowl.

Photography: Yoshida Daisuke

　

Relaxing through communication with little dinosaurs

──Tell us what you're currently interested in.

Kono: Definitely little birds. I have a 3-year-old cockatiel at home, and it's really fascinating. It doesn't speak human words, but we communicate incredibly well. For example, when I show it a toy, it happily comes over, and it seems to be chattering away right by my ear. I can't understand it, though.

At home, it's always perched on my shoulder or head. It's so soothing. Sometimes it's a pain though—like when it peels off my computer keyboard keys or pecks holes in the corners of important documents or books with its beak. True to its dinosaur ancestry, its claws are sharp, and it can be surprisingly aggressive. It's like a little dinosaur. I also have a 7-month-old Boston Terrier puppy, but right now, the bird definitely has the edge in intelligence.