By Cathy Hirano

The Setouchi Triennale summer session ends tomorrow and with it ends the Triennale on Ibukijima, an island about 2 hours travel from Takamatsu. It was the only island that elected to join the Triennale for the summer session alone, and the islanders chose to do so because that is fishing season.


Flotilla of fishing boats ready and waiting

They wanted visitors to see their home when the traditional industry, iriko (anchovy) fishing and processing, was at its peak. Brave souls, these islanders, because the Triennale meant an inundation of visitors and double the work at their busiest, and hottest!, time.



Here I share here a few impressions of Ibukijima.

The first thing that struck me on reaching the island was the number of motor scooters lined up at the port,



and the second was the fact that many still had the keys stuck in the ignition (obviously there is no escape for scooter thieves from Ibukijima).



Posters around town urged islanders to wear their helmets during the festival, which suggests that this is not a common practice on the island.



Ibukijima rises steeply out of the sea to form a flat tableland above. The hill that leads through the village is known as shinzo-yaburi or “heart rending hill”, and that is not a metaphor!



It’s not only steep but also very long, so I opted to veer left instead, taking a slightly gentler winding route and then cutting through the village in the middle. The village is a lovely, picturesque community, with many narrow, crisscrossing lanes



lined by lovely individualistic walls.



walls


and more walls




A number of walls demonstrated the reason islanders opt for the ubiquitous scooters rather than cars or trucks.



The sign on this wall announces: “Caution! This wall is moving. Be careful not to hit it with your car. If you do, you’ll pay for it.” It looks like quite a few people may have already paid for it.



Besides being scenic, Ibukijima is also a very friendly island. Many people stopped to see if I needed help to get around the village or just to chat. One was this graphic designer and island native who currently lives in Okayama.



He is kindly displaying his pilgrim jacket. He had just climbed Mt. Ichizuchi (1,932 meters) in Ehime the day before, and had returned to Ibukijima to pray at Ichizuchi’s sister shrine on the island.



Although it would have helped if this weren’t the hottest summer on record, all of the above coupled with the incredible views from the island, made Ibukijima a great setting for the Setouchi Triennale art sites. (But I will introduce those in my next post.)



Takamatsu Access:
Takamatsu makes a great base for visiting the Triennale. There are direct flights from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, as well as from Taiwan, China and Korea, and an express bus link from Kansai International Airport (3 hr). It can also be reached by taking the bullet train to Okayama and changing to the Marine Liner bound for Takamatsu (runs every 1/2 hour; takes 1 hour). For more info see http://wikitravel.org/en/Takamatsu