The island that Dragon God Legend Lives on

“A Road to Feel the Sci-Fi-esque Bleakness”
Katsuya Terada (illustrator)

It was in June of 2013, when I first visited Ikeshima. At that time, the initial purpose was to visit Gunkanjima, but through Mr. Kojima’s tour, I also became attracted to Ikeshima. There is absolutely no one in Gunkanjima, so it is a complete ruin. However, people still reside in Ikeshima, and it has totally different atmosphere. Once prospered as a place for industry with thousands of residents, the town has declined but still inhabited. It is like the world of Sci-Fi. Moreover, Ikeshima has no support structure for tourism, so you must go back to Nagasaki on the same day of the tour. I like that feeling of bleak emptiness. The details left behind are perfect, such as rusted colors and matte textures of the abandoned factory. These textures can never be recreated. Well, there is no point in that. Human beings tend to make anything as long as there is meaning, but it gets broken the moment when that meaning is gone.
One can feel astonished when looking at the greatness of nature, like having Mount Everest in front of us. As for Ikeshima, it is a completely different story, because, unless maintained by human hand, its environment is destined to crumble away. What mankind has created, after all, neither goes beyond human scale nor one’s life. We are deeply moved when something is being destroyed regardless of its splendid past.
I made a drawing during my previous visit to Ikeshima, and a drawing project has started since March 2016, which takes place on islands of Nagasaki. I’ve been drawing dragons, because Ikeshima’s shrine has the legend of dragon god, and they are also the guardian figures of Nagasaki. Even if people have no interest on the island itself, I hope it will become an opportunity for some to visit the site and to see my work. For town revitalization projects such as this one, what becomes important is to keep continuing, and I certainly hope to take part again.

“A Road that Takes Us to Other Worlds.”
Kenichi Kojima (Research Fellow, Infrastructures Lifetime-Extending Maintenance Research Center, Nagasaki University)

In 2008, I initially visited Ikeshima to research the undersea coal mine (mining tunnel). But rather than the tunnel, I became more interested in the island’s history and buildings, and kept thinking about how to utilize the island’s resources. I then rented a house in 2011 and had lived on the island for three years.
When I first started living on the island, the only surviving factory was still running, and at 8AM there would be this loud siren along with the music of radio exercise broadcasted even in empty apartment buildings; it felt very surreal. Ikeshima’s commercial mining began in 1959 and until it closed in 2001, this tiny island was home to many people for 49 years, nearly 8,000 residents in its heyday. Today, there are about 150 people. The factory, which I mentioned earlier, closed down at the end of 2014. Closed mines are located throughout Japan, but since Ikeshima is an isolated island, it is no exaggeration to say that the coal mine facilities and housing are remained untouched. On mainland, unused properties are usually demolished and turned into vacant lots. Ikeshima, on the other hand, the mine tunnel is still remaining and you can even get on the tram to tour the site.
The circumference of the island is about four kilometers. Three hours is enough to walk around the entire island. Flowers and plants flourish in the spring, including cherry blossoms. The withered vegetation makes the winter melancholic yet beautiful. In the summer, although there is nothing to protect you from the scorching sun, the colors are incredibly vivid and clear. In the fall, the position of the sun makes the best time for gleaming buildings and sunset. This contrast between nature and artifact is what makes Ikeshima interesting. Depending on the season, the face of the island varies quite radically. This diverse beauty of the island is what I’d like to convey to everyone.