Consider: Japan's Art Islands
Where you can live like a bond villain
Kon’nichiwa existing and new readers! This week, we dive deep into a favourite spot of ours and take a more in depth look at the ways in which imparting some of the things we talk about here at Considered can shape communities. If we inspire even one billionaire to create a new art island, well, that’s a job well done.
Linen clothes frustrate me. I have a couple of linen shirts and every time I put one on, it doesn’t make it out of the house. Unlike “friend of Considered”, Stanley Tucci, I can’t pull it off. Similarly, this week Kevin and I set out to write about linen fabric, but three days in we ended up putting it back on the proverbial newsletter hanger and trying on another outfit.
So today, let’s travel to Japan and dive into its little islands dedicated to fine art. The premise sounds like a story out of a Bond movie (and has the architecture for it): a global network of language schools and phrase books has funded the transformation of a chain of islands in the Seto Sea (off the southern coast of Japan) into a sustainable tourism and art mecca.
Read on for an interesting story about transforming a space, managing an aging population (an increasingly important conversation in western society), and some great photos of incredible spaces.
Design
In the 1980s, Japanese billionaire Soichiro Fukutake took an interest in the Seto Islands. He had built his fortune with an educational company that, amongst other things, published the Berlitz language guides and runs ELS language skills classes.
The Seto Islands suffered the scars of industrialization and had long been neglected as a tourist destination. The island of Naoshima had been the site of a large Mitsubishi affiliated copper refinery for many years. Teshima island had been an illegal waste dump for about the same. As well, they were also facing the challenges of an aging and shrinking population. The population of Naoshima dropped from around 8,000 in the 1950s and 1960s to a little over 3,000 now.
Fukutake started development on the islands by working with renowned Japanese Architect Tadao Ando to build the Benesee House Museum and Hotel, which would act as an anchor tenant in the build-out of a new kind of tourism destination. He later added the Chichu Museum and other structures on the island.
In this great interview, Fukutake talks about how he visited the Seto Islands in 1985 to visit a site his father had acquired with the intent to build a children’s camp. He describes how he was inspired to fill the islands with art as a way to add culture and encourage community, inspiring happiness for residents and visitors.
“Economic activity is not the purpose but the tool. Money, money, money… This headlong commercial imperative just makes us the king of debt, and that does not create happiness.”
and
“What creates happiness is when people belong to good communities. People cannot attain spiritual fulfilment through economic activity alone. The economy should exist to create and support good communities where people can find happiness – a society filled with smiling happy seniors.”
What makes the museums on the island unique is that they are not designed for rotating collections. No large floor plates or high ceilings that can accommodate exhibitions of different sizes or scope. The vast majority of the exhibition space is custom designed to best reflect the specific art it houses. Famously, the collection includes work by the Earthworks master Walter De Maria, light artist James Turrell and even Monet’s Water Lilies, which are displayed in a room designed by Tadao Ando with the help of Turrell and De Maria. There is also a whole museum dedicated to the Korean minimalist artist Lee Urfan.
While all the art is impressive, one of my favourites is the James Turrell installation Skyspace. This is a work he has repeated all over the world, but at Naoshima it beautifully highlights the integration of the museum into the landscape and community.
There is more we could write about these spaces but honestly, the pictures say more than we ever could.
The Teshima Art Museum takes these concepts to the extreme. The only exhibit is the building itself! No art, just nature, views and VIBEZZZZ.
This process of transformation is ongoing with continual additions. In 2013, the Tadao Ando museum was opened on Naoshima and in 2016, the Seawall House opened on Teshima.
A visit to the islands caused me to wonder if this was a billionaire vanity project, a monument to modernism, or simply the outcome of a wholehearted desire to create something so unique and worth travelling hours by plane, train and ferry boat to experience.
Innovation/Sustainability
Think of your local museum. It is probably a colonial style structure with imposing walls and big columns. For the longest time, museums have seen themselves as keepers of culture and protectors of history. Think of the glass cases and docents keeping you at a distance from the exhibits.
Where the Benesee effort differs is in it’s aim to use art as a means to revitalize a region. You hear in the news about cities stepping over each other to win the new Amazon HQ or Tesla battery factory. (Very Tyler Brule/Monocle voice) “what if they competed that way for art?” Or, “what if the city was the museum?”
The fact that the Benesse art is so bluechip goes a long way in attracting many of the visitors. But outside the museum, the local prefecture has done a great job in encouraging diffusion outside of the museums. Interwoven into the towns on the islands, artists have taken over abandoned homes and factories to turn them into installations.
One of my favourites is the Missing Post Office on Awashima. Tokyo artist Saya Kubota has turned a defunct post office into a living artwork overseen by an 82-year-old postmaster who worked the same spot for 45 years before retiring. His “job” now is to greet visitors, stamp the postcards they write, anonymously, to anyone real or imagined, past, present or future, and deposit them in tin boxes that hang in the centre of the room. Think of the neighbourhoods around your local museum. What if the exhibitions extended to a house or building down the street? While never formally adopted by a museum, the Heidelberg Project in Detroit is a great example. A local resident began painting murals on abandoned buildings and over the years has codified the practice and built a foundation around it.
Beyond all of the guest houses, cafes and restaurants that populate the islands, there are a series of festivals and events that draw visitors from all over. The largest is the Setuochi Triennial (next scheduled for 2021). This cross island festival highlights existing installations and also brings new works to the island. In 2016, over 800K people visited the island chain (this works out to 80 visitors per resident. For scale, Phuket Thailand had 17 visitors per resident).
This graph was particularly informative:
Tomohiro Muraki, director of the Setouchi Tourism Authority summarizes it well:
“We recognize that the contemporary art in the region is a key point of interest for many foreign travelers, and serves as a gateway to experiencing the culture, craftsmanship, culinary and history of the Setouchi Region. Referencing the local influences and unique character indicative to each island and prefecture, the art has lent itself to be an incredible way for visitors to learn about the distinct way of life within the region.”
For those interested in more of the numbers and policy side of the conversation, you can find an in depth exploration on Skift.
COST
Did you think an international art island with only one hotel (designed by Tadao Ando) would be cheap? A room in the hotel goes for ￥32,912, or roughly 300 USD per night.
Enterprising local residents have opened guest houses and cafes that are charming and great alternatives to stay at. They can be found for ~$40USD per night. On the mainland, across from the ferry terminal there are a number of hotels as well. The Uno Port Inn is known for its budget accommodations, craft beer selection…. and chopped salads. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If you can swing the splurge, staying in the hotel is well worth it. All of the rooms and fixtures were designed by Tadao Ando himself. You also save the $10 admission fee.
PS
One of the hidden treasures on the island is the onsen “I♥︎︎湯” (I Love YU), which opened in 2009. The Naoshima bathhouse, designed by Japanese artist Shinro Ohtake, is a working communal bath house for both sexes (as is very common in Japan). There are four things that make this interactive art experience so awesome:
1. It is wild looking
2. It allows foreign tourists to experience an element of Japanese culture (the only way in is to get naked and to actually take a bath!)
3. It is a working bath house that can be used and enjoyed by the community
4. It has incredible and inexpensive merchandise sold out of a vending machine.
