Islands lend themselves to introspection, rebalancing, a yearning for independence and equipoise. They may not be the solution to all our anxieties, but their detachment encourages a viewpoint from which to survey and revaluate our lives.
Self-expression and examination find a home in a cluster of small islands in the Seto Inland Sea. Soichiro Fukutake, head of the company Benesse and mastermind behind this art project, conveys the impression of a latter-day Florentine patron of the arts, but one with a heightened sense of the responsibility of art to improve lives and habitats.
More than simply an art project, the Benesse scheme is about resuscitating islands and islanders, stimulating both cultural and regional growth. Among the contributions to this book is a masterful essay by Peter Sloterdijk, "The Drunken Isle," that adds to the rich stock of writings about these amphibian land masses — one that extends from D.H. Lawrence's "The Man Who Loved Islands" to Peter Conrad's more recent "Islands: A Trip Through Time and Space." Apropos the Seto island project, Sloterdijk observes, "islands have afforded man the opportunity of rejuvenating culture on a smaller scale."