NIGO: From Japan with Love is a major retrospective exhibition at the Design Museum, London, bringing together over 700 objects spanning the full breadth of NIGO's creative output. The project required a flexible display strategy capable of holding together a vast and diverse collection while remaining faithful to the artist's universe.

The design is built around the concept of sampling, identifying existing off the shelf products and standard build systems and adapting them into display cases, wall builds, and set pieces. Conventional shelving systems are reappropriated as archive and retail display, a USM Haller modular furniture system is configured into an archive, and raw steel and industrial material finishes are carried throughout as a unifying palette. This approach of hacking readily available systems reflects the overarching ethos of the exhibition itself.

Beginning with a recreation of NIGO's Tokyo bedroom where every object was personally positioned by the artist, the spatial narrative moves from the DIY energy of the early BAPE years through to the refined luxury of later collaborations with Kenzo, Louis Vuitton.

Because every element is drawn from durable, purposeful existing systems, the exhibition is designed with a second life in mind. Shelving, wall builds, and display cases can be broken down and repurposed beyond the show, whether in a museum, warehouse, or domestic setting, extending the principle of reuse beyond the design process and into the life of the objects themselves.

Project: NIGO: From Japan with Love, The Design Museum
Location: London
Year: 2026
Type: Museum and Culture
Collaborators: Soup, Beam, Solved Workshop

Photography: Luke Hayes