The vision of Academy Kintsugi is generational Kintsugi-Peace Making, a term coined by its President Haejin Shim Fujimura.  “Kintsugi, the ancient Japanese art form of mending broken tea ware by reassembling ceramic pieces, creates anew the valuable pottery, which now becomes more beautiful and more valuable than the original, unbroken vessel.”  (Art+Faith: A Theology of Making, Yale University Press, © 2020 by Makoto Fujimura).  Kintsugi makers do not hide the fracture of the past; rather, they mend it to make New.  Every fracture is an opportunity to make into the New.  In this regard, Kintsugi is applicable from a broken tea ware to a fractured relationship to a victim of violence to a historical conflict zone.  According to Haejin, Kintsugi-Peace is the beauty and justice brought out of fractures and conflicts by the courageous and generative community of makers and Kintsugi-Peace Making is “making” New Creation that is true, good, and beautiful, out of brokenness, conflict, and chaos. 

​​All attendees of our workshops and training courses are called Kintsugi Makers.  Once Kintsugi Makers complete a certification training, they are eligible to become a Kintsugi Instructor certified by Academy Kintsugi.  Kintsugi Instructors are qualified to conduct Kintsugi Experience sessions in collaboration with Academy, and may be invited to become Kintsugi-Peace Makers.

Academy Kintsugi teachers include Makoto Fujimura, Kintsugi Master Kunio Nakamura, Dr. Curt Thompson, M.D., Dr. Shann Ray, Rev. James Hoxworth, and Haejin Shim Fujimura, Esq.

​​Kintsugi-Peace Making is a program of IAM Culture Care, a 503(c)(3) nonprofit organization that creates a new paradigm by lovingly tending to cultural soil and caring for artists as pollinators of the good, true, and beautiful.