Pooploop challenged visitors to reconsider excrement and discarded materials as valuable resources, showcasing over 700 exhibits that reimagined the cycle of waste through art, design, and natural systems
A Tokyo exhibition at 21_21 Design Sight demonstrated how human waste and other discarded materials could be transformed into valuable resources for both people and the environment.
As explained here, the venue, a design-focused Roppongi gallery founded by the late Issey Miyake, had established a reputation for showcasing world-class design—from Miyake’s avant-garde clothing to architecture by Frank Gehry and Tadao Ando. Yet its curators remained unafraid to direct attention toward humble, often overlooked aspects of life not typically considered “design.”
The exhibition, titled Pooploop, ran at 21_21 until February 16, 2025, and challenged visitors to reconsider waste as a useful resource rather than something to simply dispose of.
Exhibition directors Taku Satoh and Shinichi Takemura approached the project by examining the environment from multiple scales—from microscopic close-ups to outer space—including elements habitually avoided in daily life. They reframed the world’s various cycles of matter as a “pooploop,” refusing to treat waste and excrement merely as objects requiring immediate disposal. This perspective revealed what they described as numerous “wonders and curiosities” that pointed toward new design possibilities.
“People rarely consider what happens after something gets washed down the drain or thrown in the garbage,” Satoh explained. “The moment something leaves our body, despite being part of us just seconds before, we suddenly consider it unclean.”
Takemura added that “fundamentally, neither waste nor excrement truly exists. In nature’s cycles, deceased organisms and animal droppings become sustenance for other living things.”
The exhibition occupied two main galleries within 21_21 Design Sight, along with various additional spaces.
Gallery 1, called the “Pooploop Room,” functioned as an extensive archive featuring a staggering array of exhibits divided into over 700 categories. The collection included more than 190 soil varieties alone, alongside items relating to fermentation, products manufactured from excrement, fossils and shells, toilet-related exhibits, various forms of bodily waste, and video works by artists including Zach Lieberman and Tomohiro Okazaki.
Gallery 2 examined how design could reshape humanity’s relationship with waste, introducing research into new circulation systems through work by artists, designers, and researchers.
Among the exhibition’s notable pieces were sculptor Koro Ihara’s animal figures crafted from lacquered feces and wall panels constructed from earthworm castings. The display also featured Studio Swine’s accessories fashioned from human hair, Hideyuki Yamano’s XO badges built from found materials, and contributions from Alternative Machine, along with work by the curators themselves.
Tokyo-based designer Yuma Kano showcased several material experiments, including his terrazzo-inspired ForestBank material created from wood waste and his Rust Harvest tiles produced using sewage-treatment sludge. Ceramicist Toshio Matsui presented work that breathed new life into broken and abandoned ceramics.
Additional highlights included garments by fashion designer Amachi Yoshimoto that resembled shed skins, and plant-based dyes created by forager Katsunobu Yoshida. The poop emoji made an appearance alongside historical graphic representations of excrement from various cultures.
The curators aimed to illustrate how waste could become valuable again, echoing historical practices and natural systems.
“Humans aren’t the only species, nor even the first, to shape Earth’s systems,” Takemura noted. “However, we are the first with the consciousness to intentionally guide future transformation.”
He continued: “We’re now embarking on a journey to rediscover the ‘intelligence’ embedded within the planet’s biological networks. We’re beginning this partnership with the countless organisms within and around us, while simultaneously advancing our industrial circular economy.”
Pooploop joined other exhibitions exploring innovative uses for excrement. Rotterdam’s Nieuwe Instituut had examined the concept through its New Store pop-up series, while Italy’s Museo Della Merda, or Shit Museum, devoted its entire focus to the potential applications of waste.