Places I think about everyday: Naoshima & Teshima art islands
Insanely beautiful islands mixed with really good art? Yes please!
On September 7th of 2024, my wife and I got married. We had a truly, truly perfect day. On Sunday, the 8th, we cleaned the venue on 3 hours of sleep. On Monday, we had to rush to the airport while we were basically still packing for our honeymoon.
Destination: Japan. A dream come true, in every possible sense. You know, we did the 3 typical cities: Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. The entire trip was nothing short of magic, and we still think and talk about it on pretty much a daily basis. Somewhere in the middle of that trip, we spent 2 days on what, to me, have been the most surreal places I’ve ever visited. Japan’s art islands, Naoshima & Teshima.
I remember it vividly, 40°C degrees, and around a 3hour train ride from Kyoto to Uno, the port city where we stayed to visit the islands. On our travel day, High Vis had just dropped ‘Drop Me Out’ as a single leading up to their ‘Guided Tour’ album which was since released. Naturally, with HV being one of my favorite bands, I listened to that song on repeat for pretty much the entire train ride. It has nothing to do with it, but every time I hear this song I’m back on that amazingly comfortable, and punctual(!!) train.
It was around 8PM when we arrived in Uno. We had booked a place that was more of a hostel than a hotel, since options in this very small coastal town were rather limited. It looked really nice on Booking, and we were only staying for 3 nights and would be gone to visit the islands from early in the morning till late night anyway. All seemed fine, untill we got to our room. Now mind you, it was still around 40 degrees celcius at night when we visited Japan. The airconditioning did not work. I thought it was just turned off before we got there, and put it on before we went out to eat something. Should have been cool by the time we got there, but it wasn’t. Not at all. Enter 3 hours of back and forth texting with the host about how to use the AC, with him not believing it wasn’t working. My wife was sleeping anyway, since she was feeling a bit off and very tired from all the traveling and heat. In the middle of the night, at around 3 AM, the host came to our room and realized that I was right all along. He refunded us completely, and brought us to a nearby (really nice) hotel that still had a room. Took a while, but at around 4.30 AM we were in a really comfortable, and chill(!) hotel room. Cost us about 3 times what we were supposed to spend for our accomodation but it’s our honeymoon right?
Enter the next morning: very tired, but incredibly excited to see what we were sure would be an incredible part of our trip. We took the ferry from Uno to Naoshima, the bigger island of the 2 art islands. When we arrived after a 30 min boat trip, our electric bikes that we had reserved were ready and things went a lot smoother, the opposite of the night before. Things went so smooth that we were too early for our first museum reservations, and none of them were open yet. Which give us the advantage of cycling around the island for a bit before there were much people. The island itself is magical in it’s own right, even without the art.
Our first stop was the Chichu Museum, which featured a beautiful piece by James Turrell. The museum didn’t allow pictures. But the Turrell installation was one we’ve seen before in Copenhagen’s Design Museum, and it was amazing to see it again. I love the work of James Turrell dearly, especially this installation which fits right into the island with how it takes you to a different reality and makes you forget about everything else.
Most of the museums on the islands have been designed by architectural mastermind Tadao Ando, and the museum buildings in itself, are art. Unlike most museums, they weren’t designed to have rotating exhibitions, but rather have set pieces of art functioning with the actual building. Naoshima hosts around 3 museums, and multiple installations and galleries. We did Naoshima in one day, which was fine. The best part about the island is that it’s such a nice change of pace from the cities you explore when you travel to Japan.
I would define the whole day as surreal if I’d have to describe it in one word. The most beautiful weather (too hot, actually), an unbelievable island and some of art’s finest installations and architecture while you’re on the other side of the world with the most important person in your life, who you’ve just got married to. 100% recommend. I don’t want to get into details about the artwork and make this a walkthrough, but I hope the pictures show a bit of what we’ve seen
Seeing all of these incredibly famous installations like Kusama’s pumpkins in real life has brought a new level of appreciation to them, and makes me want to find other places like this to purposely travel to.
We ended our day on Naoshima by seeing Kusama’s red pumpkin, which is placed right by the ferry boarding station. Tired and fullfilled, we went back to our hotel and rested for the night.
Our second day, where we were supposed to visit Teshima, which is next to Naoshima and a smaller island started a lot differently. My wife had a rough night and got really sick. We decided to grab breakfast and see how she felt afterwards, but it got even worse. She had a fever and just felt bad generally. We went to a nearby drug store and used our translation app to explain the symptoms and hopefully get some medicine. They understood, and said it was just the result of the heat, and exhaustion. Best she could do was rest in the hotel for a day and sweat it out. We had since missed the ferry we wanted to take, and I wanted to stay with her but she insisted I went anyway.
Off to a solo mission it was! Taking a much later ferry than planned, ofcourse the bike rental place had already given our reserved bikes to someone else. With Teshima being a much smaller island, there’s a lot less places to rent bikes from, and there was only one bike left at the time I arrived. One that was way too small for me and was supposed to be electric, but it didn’t really work well anymore. Oh well, what can you do. Mind you the first part of Teshima you have to cycle uphill for about an hour, and it was still 40° degrees.
The main difference between the two islands is that where Naoshima was incredibly curated, Teshima felt a lot more organic and authentic. There were no huge museums, just small villages that had some art in there. It felt like time stood still, in a very beautiful way. A true escape. The one museum it does have is the ‘Teshima Art Museum’ which was unlike anything I had ever seen before. There’s no art. There’s nothing. The actual museum, as in the building, is the art. A shell shaped construction, by Japanese architect Ryue Nishizawa, in collaboration with artist Rei Nato.
After a short walk through nature, you’re asked to wait your turn to enter and take your shoes off. The chapel like structure doesn’t allow for photo’s to be taken, and you have to be quiet. Now mind you, I was there alone and completely exhausted from the heat, but those next 20 minutes of just walking around that structure and sitting down are probably the closes thing I’ve ever gotten to an out of body experience.
There’s small drops of water that appear from the ground and run around the floor, and two large holes in the ceiling. One faces the forest, while the other one faced the clear blue sky. To me, this experience was the epitome of Japanese minimalism, with everything stripped away to form the purest connection between a structure and nature, and make you forget about the outside world without having any distractions.
Afterwards, more cycling brought me to more small installations, but I’d be lying if I acted like the Teshima Art Museum isn’t the main attraction. Another highlight for me personally was the ‘No One Wins - Multibasket’ installation by Llobet & Pons. With a backboard shaped like the island, and a total of five basketball hoops, it’s by no means part of a regular basketball court. The piece apparently sparked a lot of discussion about wether it’s art or not - but that is always a stupid question if you ask me. It’s meant to create an alternate reality, where you have fun with your own rules and stop focussing on winning. Being a lover of all things basketball, this hit the spot and I ofcourse had to play for 30 minutes against some other people passing by, despite the heat.
Afterwards, I went for a much deserved ice cream, and a random soda I didn’t know which tasted terrible. A mistake I made a few times in Japan, and I’ll happily make again. In the late afternoon, it was time to take the ferry back to Uno, and head to our hotel. Luckily my wife had gotten much better, so we went for our daily 7/11 run, got dinner that we ate in bed while watching TV and went to sleep early. The next day, we were headed to Osaka, and luckily my wife was back to her self by then. To this day, I think about these 2 islands on a daily basis and feel very lucky to have experienced the pure bliss that came with it. I also promised my wife we’ll go back one day so she can experience the magic of Teshima herself. 100% sure it’s going to happen.
Some snapshots from these 2 days, because if I’m reminiscing I might aswell share these. All pictures in this post taken by my wife and I, either on film or iPhone. I love you, Japan.
Will be visiting Japan next year too. Thank you for the inspo! Lovely pictures.