Iwashi (sardine)

In Japan we have Setsubun festival. Setsubun (節分) is the day before the beginning of spring. When we were kids, we helped making a door decoration Hiiragi Iwashi, literally ‘holly sardine’ is a cooked sardine head impaled on a holly branch. My mother used to source these fish bones from our local sushi shop. We believe that demons which brings illness does not like the strong smell of sardines and they fear getting their eyes poked by the sharp points on holly leaves. Anyhow, I thought this smelly decoration is too intense for our London neibours so I started to make these vases so I can place our holly leaves for our Setsubun celebration and somehow people kept asking me for these fish born vases so they became my permanent collection! Just a little smelly curious story.

H: 34cm W: 20cm D:8cm (approximately)