Ainu and Modern

How to Express the Contemporary Ainu Design

Abstract

I was born and grew up in a small village Nibutani, Biratori-cho, Hokkaido where the Ainu descents account for 70 percent of the residents. Now l am working as a freelance designer in Sapporo. Though l had opportunities to learn the Ainu language and traditional games from Childhood, as l grew up l would hide my identity as the Ainu since I was teased for being an Ainu or was prejudiced against my relationships to the Ainu culture. However, I changed as I aspired to become a designer. I began to think l could set the stage to eliminate discrimination and to abolish prejudice thorough designing new modern style patterns by arranging the traditional Ainu pattern. In this paper l would like to express my view through my experiences and works．