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Friends were visiting Japan, and we decided to meet up on Naoshima, a small island in the Seto sea which has been largely transformed by the Benesse corporation into a mini art amusement getaway.
The beautiful Seto sea from the Ferry.

As we were all artists we couldn’t afford to stay in the expensive Benesse House where you can sleep in Tadeo Ando designed luxury with some of the Benesse collection on your walls. We stayed in a little Minshuku, Oyajinoumi, in Honmura. Which had a beautiful garden and nice rooms, but was a little like living in a paper balloon noise wise. One night I heard one of the girls next door get up and eat a rice cracker, every crunch.

Our room (note pheasant)

Honmura is a very beautiful town, small quiet and well kept, with many amazing gardens. The buildings are largely traditional and are often clad in wooden planks burnt black on the outside. The town seems prosperous, probably due to the Benesse Art House project, which has bought up several vacant traditional buildings and given them to artists to make a project inside. We all enjoyed the James Turrell ‘dark side of the moon’ the best, at first you walk into a huge space - totally dark and are guided to a bench, after around 5 minutes you start to see a pale hovering rectangle of bluish light, you can then get up and walk towards this shape, a really strange and difficult spatial experience. Marcin put his hand into the shape but his glow in the dark watch messed things up. A few we didn’t get to see due to closures and no “booking” vacancies.

streets of Honmura with Michelle, Marcin and Kiki.
Honmura also has two of the best hang-out-for-hours relaxed cafes I have been into in Japan. Cafe Maruya and Genmai Shinshoku - a macrobiotic place.

Marcin and Kiki in Macrobiotic cafe.
Kiki was getting a lot of Kawaii attention, too many photos and too much staring for us adults. Japan really is a childs paradise, and people really love kids here.

Benesse House collection was pretty boring with lots of middle to late 20th cent minor works from famous people. But the Chichu musuem was pretty amazing, another Ando building it is tunnelled into the side of a hill looking out over the ocean. Only three artists, Monet (3 waterlilly paintings), James Turrell and Walter De Maria; and of course you have to count Tadeo Ando as the building is so prominant. The Monets and Turrells blew us away but the De Maria was heavy handed and boring, big granite balls and gold sticks that just reminded me of giant grandiose wickets.

The public art sprinkled around the island is pretty good too - even if it is high on the amusement scale.

Michelle and Kiki inside Yayoi Kusuama’s Pumpkin.

Was lovely to spend time with good friends and I realised that I need to do more travelling away from Kitakyushu.