Naoshima. 直島

Naoshima is a small industrial and fishing island of the Seto inland sea. It is also a unique modern art project, in which art, nature, architecture, and history interweave. Tadao Ando built there three (and more) breathtaking museums, where concrete plays with light and nature, occupied by remarkable works, from Niki de Saint Phalle and Giacometti to James Turrel and Lee Ufan (not to mention Monet's Water lilies in their magical white marble room bathed in the softened sky light).

On the other side of the island, the old village has been restaured and some of the ancient houses turned into works of art.

These were unforgettable days of joy and wonder, walking from museum to museum, from jewel to jewel in the glistening blue shades of the island.

Photography is forbidden within the entire Benesse artistic domain, so you won't see much here: Yayoi Kusama's pumpkin and Teresita Fernadez's Blind Blue Landscape at the outskirts of the domain, and the entrance plaza of the Lee Ufan museum.

Film photography is an adventure filled with suprises and accidents. Sometimes annoying, sometimes amusing. Beyond Tadao Ando's grey wall here, the Lee Ufan museum hosts his Relatum - Shadow of Stone. As anybody can see, I am a photoshop novice, but I couldn't resist to make up my own "shadow of stone".

Post Scriptum: isn't the chinese character  島, island, beautiful? made of a bird (鳥) and a mountain (山). Although it probably comes from the island as a (sea) montain covered in birds, I like to think about it as a montain who turned into a bird and flew away from the shore to rest at sea.