Tanegashima Light Festival

Since 2023, the space and stars island Tanegashima has been staging a light art festival named Tanegashima Light Festival or Space Art Festival. This international event shows artworks shaped by light, thus benefiting from the island’s natural darkness. The place is indeed little urbanized and has thus become the location for JAXA’s largest space rockets launching facility.

The festival is spreading over 3 distinct places located in the south of the island, that are easily connected by car or by taxi (note that there is no public transport available during the event):

• Town Area (市街地エリア) is encompassing about 10 art installations in Minamitane city center;
• Space Center Area (宇宙センターエリア) includes indoor and outdoor artworks displayed on the site of Tanegashima Space Center;
• Beach Area (ビーチエリア) has only one but major attraction related to star gazing, set up on Hamada Beach inside the cave of Chikura no Iwaya (千座の岩屋).

Let’s introduce some of the artworks installed for the 2nd edition of Tanegashima Light Festival, held from November 1rst to December 8 in 2024, and themed on "love of the unknown."

Minamitane City Center: a great introduction

The touring of the light artworks starts in the center of Minamitane City. Most installations are laid out in the city’s buildings, that display various stages of disrepair, and in the neighborhood’s shrines and temples. As they were designed for observation at night or in a very dark place, pictures do not do justice to the artworks, which are better enjoyed in person.

The Waves of This Generation (T02) is a creation by Finnish artist Anni Laukka. She built the sculpture using detritus collected on Tanegashima’s seaside, that result from Chinese and South Korean ports’ industrial activities or are products of cruise ships. In a poetic gesture, shades projected on the walls form the silhouette of a child rescuing a turtle, and of a woman picking up a plastic bottle.

Artist in residence (T03) is the work of French collective E22 / Echangeur22. They settled in the grounds of an old Shinto shrine awaiting renovation. The installation created with materials found on the spot is unusual, both spiritual and somewhat eerie at night.

Wave of light (T04) is made by atelier AILO (Atelier d'Immersion Lumineuse et Obscure / Light and Dark Immersion Studio), another French artists couple. They turned a Buddhist pavilion into a small kaleidoscope using various mirror plays and a projector inside the temple. The place, called Shinko-ji (信光寺) that could be translated as "the light one can believe in," is certainly true to its name.

Breath (T05) by Japanese duo FLIGHTGRAF represents the reunification of 2 universes. The subtle color variations symbolize the very thin wall between the terrestrial and the extra-terrestrial.

Satelles vibes (T06) was partly made with pieces salvaged from an old JAXA satellite. When a loudspeaker emits a specific frequency, the water breaks and create a shade on the ceiling.

Kalamatoria (T07) by Yasuhiro Chida is an installation made of hanging fishing wires, that form exactly 729 cubes into space. Its color and its intensity change throughout the day and become the most impressive at nightfall.

The installation Texere (T08) consists of very thin wires undulating like the ocean’s waves while a glowing foam made by a play of light seems to be "floating on the waves."

0.04 (T09) is an artwork using the light refraction in water. As time passes by and tension on the water surface increases, the diffusion of light intensifies. Each drop of water has a different refraction index until it falls, making it a unique and ephemeral work.

Tanegashima Space Center: the main exhibition area

The Space Center is home to the largest number of installations of the Space Art Festival, that are displayed both indoor and outdoor. The festival also includes concerts, live performances, and food trucks on the site allow to grab a snack in the evening and enjoy local specialties.

Artist Jun Kosaka’s f(p) (S02) is a video mapping projection, using a fractal-based software to generate random shapes and reliefs. The audience can play with the software and experience the infinity of mathematics.

宇宙サイコロ Uchu saikoro (S04) or "space dice," is an original creation based on probabilities, that are symbolized by dices. The artwork consists of 3 glass bulbs containing each several dices. Visitors are welcome to shake the bulbs and try to get all dices showing number 1 upwards at once:

• According to probabilities this result can be obtained with the 1rst bulb every 129 minutes;
• Every 69 years with the 2nd bulb; and,
• Every 25 billion years with the 3rd bulb, that is to say twice the time elapsed since the Big Bang.

One can’t help having fun trying to roll the dices and hoping to be the lucky one. The installation shows that no one knows when the next Big Bang will happen, in the same manner as no one can know when all dices will synchronize.

Brocken 5 (S10) offers to meditate on the empty and the "nothing" that is part of everyone’s life. Therefore, Yasuhiro Chida imagined some sort of large cabin, enclosed by metal sheets walls into which over 50,000 small holes are drilled. Standing or sitting on a bench inside the structure, visitors can observe the light flowing through the holes both on the daytime and at night, with the sun rays replaced by an artificial light. The background music and smoke diffusion add to the ethereal atmosphere.

Zero-gravity, skin (S11) offers a surreal experience with the reflection of light on an endlessly flowing water curtain recreating the vision of a weightless skin. While this installation is a complex artwork, it was nevertheless laid out on a natural pond still used by the wildlife on the daytime.

Analemma (S12) tackles the complexity of the conception of space in an installation composed of countless thin woven wires illuminated at their intersections. Onlookers enjoy an observation platform built at the center of the artwork to simulate an immersion into space. Every 5 minutes, the lighting intensifies to create a memorable light finale.

Aftereal (S13) is a tribute to the European light festivals, such as France’s Lyon Festival of Lights, that were the inspiration to set up this event in Tanegashima in Japan: a light art in the cosmos on a remote and barely inhabited island.

Hamada Beach and Chikura no Iwaya cave: the showstopper

The last attraction, named Super Planetarium - Cave of Stars in English, is worth going to Tanegashima in itself as it provides a magical and mostly unique experience. Japanese engineer Takayuki Ohira designed a home-made super planetarium showing 10 million stars, inside Chikura no Iwaya cave.

This technical and artistic prowess is only viewable 2 hours per night, so as the access to the natural cave remains safe, as the only way to enter is from the beach on low tide. In 2024, it was possible to attend this event only 3 nights, on November 29 and 30, and on December 1.

The irregular surfaces of the natural rock chamber become the canvas for the projection, allowing for a poetic moment of discovering constellations in a stargazing experience sheltered by the cave.

Leaving the planetarium, the show goes on with Tanegashima’s very own starry sky, especially clear and bright even to the naked eye. Lastly, stop at the campfire at the beach to have a bite of imo-yaki, a sweet potato roasted on a wood fire.

Tanegashima Light Festival is intended for visitors interested in an unusual matsuri in Japan, along with an occasion to discover an island totally off the beaten tracks. Astronomy enthusiasts will be on cloud nine admiring the light artworks and the natural beauty of Tanegashima’s sky, where the stars seem so close.