Project Detail 01 / Brand Collaboration
ZAKU Helgoland
Brand collaboration and release party
Morihiko Kawamoto created the original artwork for ZAKU Helgoland, a new junmai daiginjo in the ZAKU sake line by Shimizu Seizaburo Shoten. A release party was held at SOHO HOUSE TOKYO on 19 September 2026, and the sake went on sale on 20 September.
- Product
- ZAKU Helgoland
- Type
- Junmai daiginjo (a new addition to the ZAKU series)
- Brewery
- Shimizu Seizaburo Shoten (Suzuka, Mie)
- Role
- Original artwork for the label; copywriting and design supervision for the gift box; direction and production of the promotional film; conceptual communication
- On sale
- 20 September 2026
- Release party
- Saturday 19 September 2026, SOHO HOUSE TOKYO (two sessions, same programme)
- Official site
- seizaburo.jp/zakuhelgoland
Concept
Background and Concept
ZAKU Helgoland is the first project in “Art of ZAKU”, through which Shimizu Seizaburo Shoten brings art and sake together.
The Art of ZAKU Project
At its 150th anniversary, Shimizu Seizaburo Shoten began a 150th Anniversary Project that renovated the brewery buildings and refreshed the design of brands such as ZAKU and Suzukagawa. The brewery has since redefined its work with many artists as the Art of ZAKU Project.
- 01
Expressing unseen value
To express, together with artists, the emotional qualities that cannot be counted: the process of fermentation, the breath of the craftspeople.
- 02
Speaking beyond language
To accelerate collaboration with art scenes in Japan and abroad and with other industries, making creativity a common language.
- 03
Approaching a cultural icon
To merge with music, spatial design and literature, and keep offering cultural experiences.
The Motif: Helgoland
Helgoland is the remote North Sea island where Werner Heisenberg, in his twenties, conceived the ideas that led to quantum theory. To discover something is to take on a long and deep solitude, and also to share that solitude with trusted companions. This thought runs through the label, the box, the film and the postcards.
“Behind the act of brewing sake, and behind the urge to leave something beautiful on paper, there is a pure exchange between nature and people that numbers and words alone cannot measure.”
Morihiko Kawamoto
From the brewery: “Morihiko Kawamoto draws out a new face of ZAKU. Fine art, a brewer’s devotion and the heat that lives in every detail come together in a cup that stirs all five senses.”
Works
Works
Kawamoto created the original label artwork and label design, wrote and supervised the gift box, directed and produced the promotional film, and wrote the text for the postcards given to guests.
Label Artwork
The theme is Helgoland, a small island floating in the northern sea. The island’s distinctive terrain is drawn like an aerial map, its shape rendered in fine dots and lines, with sea routes and natural motifs spreading around it. Blank space was left deliberately, in the hope that each viewer’s own reading will settle there. It is an image that stands for nature and human intelligence, and for our hope to dream of the future across time. The label carries the credit “artwork by MORIHIKO KAWAMOTO”.
When I received this theme, the landscape of the island, the weight of the time that has flowed there, and endless possibility opened in my mind. Putting all of that into a single drawing is the core of this work.
Product and Production Photographs
Gift Box Text (Text by Morihiko Kawamoto)
Inside the gift box, Kawamoto’s text is printed in both Japanese and English. Below is the Japanese, with a provisional English rendering.
The sweet, everlasting correlation between science and art. Two things standing tall against each other, and what forms the border between them must be something we can only call a line.
A swelling filled with the hidden exchanges of many people and things; and from a cut slipped into it by the act of expression, a fragrance drifts.
Carrying the joy of a fateful discovery glittering in the chest, I walk through a field of flowers of many colours, each one a premonition.
Live with the pride of letting the infinitely large dwell in one infinitely small point. For what has been and what is to come, may blessings be many.
Black and white are not related as inside and outside, or above and below…
Imagining, from impossibly far away, the moment the young Heisenberg witnessed, a vivid black from the tip of a pen set down on paper declares an irreversible beginning.
A wish to set aside purpose and intention frees the hand; as it moves, a territory comes into being. The fate of quantum theory, shaken awake. Expression beats like a pulse.
Entrusted to the fingertips that grip the pen so calmly: the excess of many restless bodies I have known.
Promotional Film “Until It Becomes a Line” (working title)
The film layers Kawamoto’s sensory world, and the blank space and flow of time that emerge from it, through one maker’s inner impulse and fragments of daily life. It visualises how scattered fragments such as sound, scent, light and matter converge into a single line. It was shot in two contrasting yet inseparable places: the rental studio Atelier Mass and a bar in Aoyama, Bar RADIO.
| Scene | Content | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Things without names | Light, sound, form and scent that flow inward in daily life, fragments not yet called either image or word (including narration) | |
| Choosing and rearranging | Arranging flowers, choosing books, putting on clothes, placing objects. The process in which what is received from the world becomes Kawamoto’s own, shown as a performance | Atelier Mass |
| Making one’s own place | Bringing fragments from the working environment into an empty space and rearranging the inner world within the image | Atelier Mass |
| Becoming a line (filming the original) | The moment a line is born on blank paper, and the moment leaves overlap the work | Atelier Mass → Bar RADIO |
| Gaining otherness (interview) | The line opens to others along with the work, the label and the sake, and flows into the time of those who see, touch and drink | Bar RADIO |
The finished film was screened as a concept video at the opening of the release party.
Postcards for Guests
At the release party, guests received three postcards, printed on both sides: a photograph of the bottle with a list of retailers; the label artwork with a brush-written haiku, “From a lonely island, the light that brews, today’s bond”; and a photograph of Kawamoto reading, with a poem about thinking of the forest while living in the city.
1 Bottle and retailers
2 Original artwork and haiku
3 Photograph and poem
ZAKU Helgoland on sale from Sunday 20 September 2026. Retailers as printed on the postcard.
Hasegawa Saketen
Azabu-Juban
2-3-3 Azabu-Juban, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Gransta Tokyo
1-9-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; inside JR Tokyo Station, B1F
Tokyo Solamachi
1-1-2 Oshiage, Sumida-ku, Tokyo; Tokyo Skytree Town, Tokyo Solamachi, 1F
Palace Hotel Tokyo
1-1-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; Palace Hotel Tokyo, B1F
Nihonbashi
2-1-1 Nihonbashi-Honcho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo; Takeda Global Headquarters, 1F
IMADEYA
Chiba Main Store
714-4 Ninona-cho, Chuo-ku, Chiba
GINZA
6-10-1 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo; GINZA SIX, B2F
Chiba Ekinaka
1-1-1 Shin-Chiba, Chuo-ku, Chiba; JR Chiba Station, Perie Chiba Ekinaka, 3F
SUMIDA
4-27-14 Kotobashi, Sumida-ku, Tokyo; Kinshicho PARCO, 1F
NAGOYA SAKAE
3-15-20 Sakae, Naka-ku, Nagoya; Matsuzakaya Nagoya, North Building, B1F
KAKU-UCHI TOKYO
1-6-1 Yaesu, Chuo-ku, Tokyo; TOFROM YAESU TOWER, 1F
Release Party
The Release Party
On Saturday 19 September 2026, the release party for ZAKU Helgoland was held at SOHO HOUSE TOKYO in Minami-Aoyama, in two sessions with the same programme.
- Programme
- Presentation of the new product, a special tasting of the ZAKU series, and a talk between the artist and the brewery
- Venue
- SOHO HOUSE TOKYO (3-8-35 Minami-Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo). Five minutes on foot from Omotesando Station
- Our role
- Planning, booking of performers and day-of operation (10.2 Co., Ltd.)
SOHO HOUSE was founded in London in 1995 as a members’ club for people who work in the creative industries. It opened its first Japanese house in Tokyo in spring 2026.
Programme
- 1Opening remarks (MC: Nanami Ozaki)
- 2Screening of the concept film
- 3Morihiko Kawamoto’s speech, remarks by President Shimizu, toast
- 4Mingling
- 5Dance (Shinbashi Kimiyu / Onoe Kai; shamisen and song, Shinbashi Yume)
- 6Mingling
- 7Conversation (President Shimizu × Morihiko Kawamoto)
Photography was permitted in the cabaret room. At the back left of the stage, a space let guests see original drawings up close, including the work made for this occasion, and canapés were set out on the black counter at the back of the room. The first session ran from 17:00 to 18:30.
Opening Remarks (excerpt)
Tonight, as we meet here, we celebrate the birth of a new ZAKU by Shimizu Seizaburo Shoten and the artist Morihiko Kawamoto: ZAKU HELGOLAND, a new addition to the main line. The door to the beautiful story that leads to this supreme drop, born of an exchange between nature and people that numbers and words cannot measure, is about to open.
Sake Served
In addition to ZAKU Helgoland, five current ZAKU sakes were served.
| Brand | Name | Type |
|---|---|---|
| ZAKU Helgoland | ZAKU HELGOLAND | Junmai daiginjo |
| Gen no Tomo | GEN NO TOMO | Junmai |
| Megumi no Tomo | MEGUMI NO TOMO | Junmai ginjo |
| Miyabi no Tomo | MIYABI NO TOMO | Junmai ginjo |
| Ho no Tomo | HO NO TOMO | Junmai |
| Kanade no Tomo | KANADE NO TOMO | Junmai ginjo |
Morihiko Kawamoto’s Speech (final text)
He drew an accordion-folded sheet of ceremonial paper from the breast of his black formal kimono and unfolded it. The speech was delivered with this gesture. The English is a provisional translation.
Good evening, everyone. I am Morihiko Kawamoto. I will spin my words while looking at this sheet, which I have just drawn from my kimono.
In the film you have just seen, I spoke of an abundant, absolute solitude enveloped by the forest, and of my own work that continues from it. Yet now I feel deeply that this endless time of solitude was a long run-up to tonight. The line I found in stillness was never meant to be shut inside one person; it was meant, in time, to open to someone’s gaze and to the world outside. Lit by the glow that the people of Shimizu Seizaburo Shoten bring forth, and poured into your glasses tonight, my work is led into a richer expanse.
Life teaches us now and then the weight and dignity of ritual. Even at this moment, I performed a small ritual: opening this sheet.
I wrote the manuscript in front of me, but this telling is not mine alone. I handed it to a friend, and it came back to my hands, beautifully copied out. I hand myself over, and am told again through that person’s hand and eyes. When, through that exchange, words gain warmth, expression leaves a solitary hand and opens to what can truly be shared. The resonance rising in this room, and the premonition of its fragrance, have already begun on this very sheet.
Nanami Ozaki, who opened this evening with her greeting, comes from Mie, like the brewery. Three people of my generation made the film and music you saw with me: Mr. Onishi, Mr. Mizuochi and Mr. Takigawa. They gave beautiful form to the hopes and aesthetics I dream across time. And to everyone at Shimizu Seizaburo Shoten, who walk this journey with us, and to all of you gathered here: I offer, once again, my deep gratitude and respect.
In the middle of the evening there will be a dance by Shinbashi Kimiyu, a disciple of the head of the Onoe school, who holds the name Onoe Kai. It is a dance of celebration, to purify this new place where we gather, to carve heavy memory with an endless afterglow, to praise the contradiction of human beings who crave both skill and nobility, and to share, at times, the “joy of being enchanted”.
“ZAKU HELGOLAND.” What did we wish for, facing the future? The answer lives in the very atmosphere of this room, where the story this sake honours, the thoughts of those who took on solitude, the magic of fermentation and the pulse of expression cross. That, we could say, is the meaning of this meeting, and what we have all longed for together.
It has been a little over one hundred and fifty-eight years since Shimizu Seizaburo Shoten was founded as Daikokuya Shimizu Seizaburo Shoten in Wakamatsu, Suzuka, Mie. The magic of fermentation, the abundance of living well and eating well, the possibility of science and technology, and the stories that art can tell: carrying the many unforgettable things carved into us, we go toward a future we have not yet seen.
I hope your five senses open, and that the afterglow of this night echoes for a long time.
19 September, Reiwa 8 Morihiko Kawamoto
The Toast
Near the end of the speech, Kawamoto handed over to President Shimizu of Shimizu Seizaburo Shoten, and the toast followed his remarks. The words used were as follows.
Thank you very much. That I can stand here today is entirely thanks to this person. Please welcome him with applause: President Shimizu of Shimizu Seizaburo Shoten.
(After the President’s remarks, to the toast)
Please take up your glasses. To cherish the afterglow, we will not touch glasses. I will say the words of the toast, and in place of a cheer, I ask that you quietly raise your glass.
ZAKU HELGOLAND, offered to everyone who loves sake, loves ZAKU and loves expressing something. Now then, everyone: in respect for a beautiful way of living and a beautiful way of drinking. Cheers.
Gallery
Photo Gallery
Photographs by 水落 雅周 (Mizuochi), arranged by scene.
Venue and opening
Exhibition and staging
Morihiko Kawamoto’s speech
Toast
Dance
Shamisen and song
Conversation
Mingling
Sake and food
Credits
Credits and Contact
People on the day
- MC
Nanami Ozaki
Born in Ise, Mie. President of Sanbun no Nana Co., Ltd. As brand director of the akoya pearl brand SEVEN THREE., she develops the Goldfish Pearl®. Ise-Shima Ambassador.
- Japanese dance
Shinbashi Kimiyu / Onoe Kai (新橋 喜美勇／尾上漕)
A Shinbashi geisha, and disciple of the head of the Onoe school. Performs at banquets and in Azuma Odori stage productions. Has appeared in a Ryukakusan commercial.
- Shamisen and song
Shinbashi Yume
Production staff
- Planning and creative direction
- Morihiko Kawamoto
- Film direction and documentary shooting
- 大西 宏樹 (Onishi)
- Still photography and documentary shooting
- 水落 雅周 (Mizuochi)
- Music, sound design and venue PA
- 瀧川 宣之 (Takigawa)
- Graphic design
- 上村 泰 (Uemura)
- Staff
- 西川 麻希子、早川 大貴、多幾 雅人、加藤 瑞稀、上村 京子、上村 弥々
Contact and Links
- Planning and creative direction
- Morihiko Kawamoto (10.2 Co., Ltd.)
- Official site
- https://seizaburo.jp/zakuhelgoland/ ↗
- Brewery
- Shimizu Seizaburo Shoten (Suzuka, Mie)
Please contact Kawamoto in advance about use of the text and images on this page.