Bizen - Barcelona
A thousand-year tradition is not transplanted: it is shared.
Bizen is not a distant reference. Magali worked there alongside Taiga Mori, joined full wood firings, and lived the tradition from inside. That bond now connects Japan with Can Brull.
What Bizen is
Bizen, in Okayama Prefecture, is home to a ceramic tradition more than a thousand years old. Its pieces are unglazed, transformed by long wood firings where ash, flame, clay, and placement make every surface unique. Six historic pottery families have sustained the tradition, among them the Mori family.
How the relationship began
In 2019, Magali travelled to Bizen for the first time to learn about the traditional ways of making ceramics in Japan. Years later she met Taiga Mori, who took her in as an apprentice and shared his knowledge of wood kilns and the Bizen ceramic tradition. Between firing cycles, long hours feeding the fire, studio work, and shared tables with the Mori family, the idea of building a kiln at Can Brull was born.
From Bizen to Can Brull
The idea for Kujiragama was born during the long firing days in Japan: a kiln in Catalonia that could hold part of Bizen's knowledge and become a new space for research, teaching, and community. Taiga guided the design, Magali drove the project, and Frank Richter with an international team made the build possible. It is not a replica; it is a living kiln.
Experiences in Japan
MK Pottery Studio runs programs in Bizen where participants learn the tradition by living it: studio work, wood firing, exchange with local ceramicists, and life around the kiln. Knowledge travels in both directions: firings and workshops at Can Brull, and the reverse journey to the territory where the tradition begins. Dates and formats are published in the calendar as each program is confirmed.
