Naoshima Art Island

Naoshima is a small island (think Aran Islands size) located on the Seto Inland Sea between Honshu and Shikoku.  Our reason for going was that it has been turned into an art island where the art museum buildings were purposely designed and built for the exhibits that they house.  They operate a very strict no photo policy around all of these buildings/exhibits so we can’t really show you what we saw.  We can however say that it was brilliant.  The remoteness and cost of the place means that you really do get to enjoy some great art from the likes of Monet, Pollock, Warhol, James Turrell and Walter De Maria.

Pumpkins on the pier - yup, it's an art island

Benesse House entrance - discreet

The two main galleries are called Benesse House and Chichu and are both designed by a famous architect called Tadao Ando.  There’s also an art house project where various houses in one of the island villages have been converted into exhibits.  Our favourite of these was where somebody got a Statue of Liberty into a two story house or the exhibit where you are led inside to sit in complete darkness for 10 minutes until your eyes adjust and you can see what’s in there and lead yourself out – trés cool.

Another art museum entrance

Who's yer man?

If you ever go here it’s worth checking out our accommodation, a place called the Uno Slope House (in Uno on the mainland) run by a lovely guy called Max who picked us up from the train station and gave us a glass of Japanese Whiskey over a chat.  He also makes a delicious pancake breakfast that we heartily recommend.  We loved it here not only because Max gave us a grounding of the area but because we got to see what a normal Japanese house looked like.  Same same but different basically and we slept in a tatami mat room which was a novelty.  Max spent a lot of his life in New York and speaks near perfect English, a rarity in Japan which was great for us as we had so many questions.  He also makes movies and runs a funky little art-film festival in Uno http://www.unoportfilms.org.

Delicious pancake breakfast at the Slope House

Max, our lovely host and chef

On getting the ferry back to the mainland we hopped on a train down the coast to the Shikoku capital of Matsuyama.