For our first taste of the Setouchi Art festival we went to Shodoshima.  Naturally our plan to get the ferry from Takamatsu at 9.07 to Teshima didn’t quite happen. It takes a good 2.5hours to drive from the west end of Kamiyama and get on the boat in civilised style. As the ferries to Teshima are infrequent we decided to go to Shodoshima instead.

Shodoshima is a bigger island, but its art works are concentrated together and are easily accessible by bike or bus from Tonoshu port.   On the Island there are three works by Shodoshima’s own, Aki Rika (KAIR 2008).

The weather was so hot mere existence was a battle. A schedule of Island hopping would have been too much.

The festival’s organization is excellent, signs and maps are extremely well designed and clear and there is parking at all sites including Takamatsu port. Looking for and appreciating the art works allowed us to savour a moment in some of the beautiful landscapes of Shodoshima. Such as Angel Way and Nakayama village . Close to the very beautiful Angel Way is the work ‘Networks’ by Suh Do Ho, a gleaming net threaded with linked figures.

As midday passed we sweated our way up to Nakayama village, purchased a grandmother straw hat and remarked on the beauty of a leaflet illustrating a hillside of terraced rice fields.

Aki Rika’s magical ‘When you think of an island’ viewing tree, looked so fitting that it seemed as if it had grown there especially for Rika. Through the bushes a sleepy glow of LED boats and thankful shade. Then BAM! Wow! an incredible, enormous pavilion made of bamboo situated in the very rice field terraced landscape on the leaflet.   The sun lower in the sky now illuminated the zingy green of the rice leaves, in front  Wang Wen-Chih had constructed this fairy tale dream house. Inside a circle of people relaxed and listened to live music.

Up to another piece of Aki Rika’s work. Softly shells sounded above a natural spring that used to provide water to the villagers. At the shaved ice shop we ate the town speciality, iced milk, kintoki and soy sauce Kaki Gori made from the same natural spring water. Delicious.