Art Island Notebook

  • Island Voices: Rie Yamanishi: Revealing and Seeing

    By Eri Motohashi (日本語のインタビューはこちら） Island Voices is a series of interviews with people on Naoshima, giving “voice” to the spectrum of creativity ...

  • 島の声：山西利恵：明らかにして観る

    著者：本橋英里 (Read the English version of the interview here.) 「島の声」とは？島の人からものづくりに対するさまざまな「声」を届ける連載インタビューです。 今回はAtelier Mittaの山西利恵さんをご紹介します。現在、アート島セン...

  • Introducing Naoshima Art Club

    Naoshima Art Clubとは、直島在住もしくは直島付近に住むアートが好きな人の集まりです。月に2回ほど集まりドローイング、クロッキーやデッサンをして楽しみながらスキルアップに励んでいます。Naoshima Art Club is a group of people who live on or near Naoshima and share a love of art. Members get together about twice a month to have fun and improve their skills, primarily in drawing.

  • 島の声：下道基行の瀬戸内資料館

    「今目の前で生まれては消えていくものたちを未来からの眼差しで見つめて、収集できていたら良いのですが、どこまでできているかは、何十年後かにわかるのではないかと思います」直島での長期プロジェクトと彼の写真、研究、地域についてなど、どのようにアプローチしていくのかアーティスト下道基行さんにお話してもらいました。

  • Island Voices: Motoyuki Shitamichi's Inland Sea Archive

    "It would be prudent to notice the things being born and disappearing right in front of us, and collect those for the future." Artist Motoyuki Shitamichi discusses his multi-year project on Naoshima and his approach to photography, research, and local knowledge. 

  • Finding “Revitalization” in an Island Art Festival

    The Setouchi Triennale attempts to revitalize twelve remote islands with depopulating and aging communities by hosting an international art festival to promote tourism. However, simply defining "revitalization" is a challenge.

  • Island Borderlines: Proof-of-Island

    The physical or material manifestation of islands is simultaneously the most obvious and least justifiable way of describing an island. It's an interesting place to start a discussion of island borders.

  • The Island Without Tourists

    As Covid-19 spreads in Japan, the normally bustling Naoshima is more like it was twenty years ago, before the island had become a tourist destination. What felt normal a year ago has become strange, as locals do their best to wait out the pandemic amid this unnaturally quiet spring.

  • Inujima, the Art Island

    Once home to as many as 4,000 people, Inujima is down to only a few dozen elderly inhabitants. It’s also a major art tourism destination. This second life has complicated the story of Inujima’s decline, though whether this is for the better is a matter of debate.

  • Origin Myths

    For generations the residents of Naoshima drew their water out of wells. There was a problem, however: the water smelled terrible. So Chikatsugu Miyake, mayor of Naoshima, invited the mayor of the nearby city of Tamano to the island, and served him tea.

  • Naoshima, the Art Island

    What is an art island? Can such a thing really exist? And what is it like to live on one? Naoshima’s interwoven identities defy easy classification—as with anything worth looking at, the closer you get, the more complex the island becomes.