Our homestay comprised of a group of bungalows on stilts nestled into the rock face. There were animals everywhere. It is very beautiful, but very, very wet.
Read MoreRoom with a view.
landscape
Room with a view. Mokpo.
Good luck if you come from a fried chicken - Google translate, recommendations list. Mokpo
…what I see are vast, flat, empty spaces filled with a diverse ecosystem, with layered mountains forming screens in the distance. The wetlands are tidal and at the time of our visit it was a very low tide. Beautifully empty, beautifully still and beautifully mesmerising.
Read More'Live Like a King'. - Used Brands shop slogan. Takamatsu.
There are many glossy internet write-ups about Naoshima, the art island, with reference to its architecture and art museums.
Well, from our experience they are pretty far off the mark. The art played second fiddle to the beauty of the island.
Naoshima Island supposedly has a reputation as a ‘Mecca for art devotees’. We visited on a Monday knowing 4 out of 5 galleries were closed. But, as informed, there were many outside installations and the stunning Benesse Art Museum to see. Teshima, the sister island’s galleries were also all open.
So off on the ferry we went.
Refreshment stop
What we found, is the ferry company doesn’t run enough island connections to enable you to do both islands in one day - unless you’re a hotel guest, then you can.
We choose Naoshima island because we could see Benesse House, outside art installations and hire bikes and cycle round the whole island.
What we found when we got the bikes was that’s not possible - unless you’re a hotel guest, then you can.
To see the many outside installations you had to leave your bike and walk. The installations were only the examples mentioned on the internet and while they were fun, they had become teenage selfie centres. Yayoi Kusama’s ‘Pumpkins’, being the main contenders.
Each of gallery’s carry a hefty price tag. Chichu Art Museum is the most raved about with a fee of £35. But it was closed.
Benesse Art Museum is a stunning concrete homage to brutalist architecture, that’s where it ends. This was not a curated art museum, this was a private collection. An incoherent small group of artwork, that had been randomly acquired. They had no narrative and bore no relationship to each other or the space around them. Except for Hiroshi Sugimotos seascapes series - presented in an inspired setting but access into the space was denied. You probably had to be a hotel guest.
Before we knew it we had covered the entire space and seen everything. We left the gallery feeling underwhelmed.
It reminds me of how wonderful Yorkshire’s Wakefield Sculpture Park is. Free, huge and staggering in its wealth of artistic brilliance. I can’t help but feel how lucky we are in The UK.
Hiring the bikes was brilliant and made it such a lovely day. The higher we climbed the more amazing the views. One minute we were bathed in glorious sunshine then the next it went black. It was like a piece of theatrical art, as we watched a storm approaching from behind the islands.
The lightbox looks so wrong that I like it.
The islands across the water look beautiful. Like nothing we have ever seen before. They are worth returning to another time. But, Naoshima is not a ‘Mecca for art devotees’, the art is the expensive sideshow.
Road mirrors for the Art Museum Bus came in handy.
We got the high speed ferry home having saved potentially £200.
Exploring Time in an overgrown tangle of historical remnants.
Part 2 Abstract Landscapes.
This series of images focuses on the concept of time: time passed and time present. An overgrown tangle of historical remnants - a working quarry, penal camp, film set and now a natural sanctuary for wildlife.
A few months ago I visited Krakow and although Auschwitz was on my agenda, it was the Liban Quarry that was my first destination. Lying overgrown and abandoned, slowly evolving into a nature sanctuary for a cacophony of wildlife, it looks and feels forgotten. Encircled by huge dramatic limestone cliffs, the quarry is hard to find, but if you forage your way through the thick tangle of undergrowth you will discover what lies hidden within.
Eerie, chilling remnants of a concentration camp lie engulfed by trees and grasses. Barbed wire, fence posts, gravestones and rusty refinery tanks emerge from the undergrowth. A silent reminder of its chilling past. One may easily be misled into thinking this was the site for the Polish WW2 concentration camp, HOWEVER, it is not.
In 1993 Steven Spielberg used Liban as the film set for all the scenes from Schindler's List that take place in the Plaszow Concentration Camp. During filming 34 barracks and watchtowers were set-up around the quarry, and though most of the set was subsequently removed, some traces remain confusingly mixed with the genuine historical leftovers from the war.
The Liban quarry WAS however a penal camp where 800 young Poles suffered at the hands of their cruel Nazi captors whilst incarcerated from 1942 - 1944. Beatings and death were dealt out liberally. A small, hardly visible, monument exists at the Za Torem side of the quarry to 21 inmates executed when the camp was liberated.
The quarry itself dates back to 1873, and was established by two well known Jewish families from Podgorze for limestone for the production of quicklime. By the end of the 19th century a series of buildings were erected within the quarry and a railway line laid as the families enjoyed an excellent reputation locally and abroad. What remains today certainly makes it very confusing when trying to decipher what remnant dates to which period of history.
To me the quarry is a strange evocative place; it plays with your emotions. I found myself struggling with the horror of its past whilst stumbling over remnants of a film set, juxtaposed with occasional historical relics of its true past. Yet despite this tangle of emotions I also found it very beautiful and peaceful.