Aichi Triannale 2025 – Abandoned School & Bathhouse

Aichi Triennale is an international art festival held every 5 years in Japan. If you don’t know where Aichi Prefecture is, basically its Nagoya plus the surrounding areas around it. Similar to the Setouchi Triennale art festival on Naoshima Island, this festival incorporates art with the natural landscape and buildings of Japanese towns and buildings.

The theme of 2025 was “A time between ashes and roses” highlighting what I interpreted as life and death as this year many of the art pieces incorporated many abandoned buildings 😍.

The Aichi Triennale is massive and spanned across three locations.
I. Seto City (One of the oldest pottery towns in Japan)
II. Aichi Prefectural Ceramic Museum (in Seto City)
III. Aichi Arts Center (Located in Nagoya City + Gift Shop!)

Its not really possible to visit all in one day, especially since Seto City involved walking between each venue, so I stayed overnight. Seto City is a charming industrial feeling town and was the absolute best part of the festival.

I. Seto City

Seto City is located about 50 minutes from Nagoya Station, and is known as one of the oldest pottery towns in all of Japan. As one of Japan’s six major pottery towns, I felt a sense of pride as I saw a few ceramic pieces incorporated in the town itself. The town was industrialized, but very much held onto an older charm.

Seto is definitely a more rustic looking town, but in the best way possible. Walking around and looking at the older buildings makes you feel like time was preserved in Japan’s Showa Era. This feeling of time travel is actually quite common the more you travel in Japan, with the most severe case of time travel for me being Yamagata Prefecture, but that’s a story for another day.

Once in a while while walking around, I stumbled upon a few art exhibitions run by some art students, eager to share their pieces with the high foot traffic. But what stood out to me the most were the shotengai (old shopping street), decaying pachinko parlors, and this post war like mantra I found nearby the now abandoned middle school.

“In the morning say good morning cheerfully.” “Say thank you with your whole heart.” “When your name is called, cheerfully answer yes.”

Seto City had my favorite art pieces of the whole Triannele in including the abandoned traditional Japanese bathhouse (sento), abandoned school, and an old factory (I didn’t have enough time to get there sadly).

The bathhouse exhibition named “Unforgettable Residues” was built by Rui Sakai, a prominent glass artist in Japan who used real life plants and glass into her work with a seafoam green hue. Her work was displayed in one of Seto Cities long running but closed down sentos, Nihon Kosen .

These bathhouses were once a booming part of Japanese culture especially during the post war/economic boom era. Although family style onsen (hot springs) are still very much a popular activity for families and general people, sentos have slowly died out after the 1960s-1980s. Sentos have a more distinguishable charm to them due to their tile artwork and more simple baths , and local onens today have all the bells and whistles to attract customers (like me 🤭).

The sento (Nihon Kosen), itself was beautiful and each part of the bathhouse was fully utilized to its full potential. Items were displayed in the baths, lockers, milk refrigerators, and on the walls itself. What surprised me was how clean everything was despite it being abandoned. It was truly a moment frozen in time.

Feeling refreshed by the non existent sento waters, I took a walk to some other exhibitions around the town. Each is quite spread out so it did take a while lol. Some standouts amongst the exhibitions included a decaying clay flower valley fixture and this totally unrelated but cool Hungarian restaurant I stumbled upon by the Seto City Art Museum lol. I’ve never eaten Hungarian food or even seen it in the states, and I had to say I was intrigued.

This art piece by Tomiyasu Yuma displayed raw clay flowers spread throughout an old store. The lights occasionally turned on and off with a red hue, giving it kind of haunted house vibes lol. From the outside of the store, the windows were blurred so I wasn’t even sure if I was in the right place at first, but once the lights flickered on, the windows suddenly became clear and showed the decayed flowers inside, then flickered off again.

So cute!! I also had a creamy kale like soup and dessert <3

After the Hungarian lunch, I headed to I think my favorite exhibition during the whole trip. Walking up a semi steep hill not far from the station, a large school appeared located in an average neighborhood and across a preschool.

Ironically, although the preschool was still open, the middle school was clearly completely abandoned. Apart from the areas clearly tidied up by staff, you could see the outside gardens overgrown with weeds and decay. Looking at the school statue and motto outside was a little sad to look out but also hauntingly beautiful (I love japanese abandoned buildings lol).

Once walking inside, it felt exactly like a Japanese school festival lol except the whole floor was a haunted room. Visitors were able to walk all across the first floor which included the teachers room, science room, kitchen, and teachers resting quarters.

Seeing the school kitchen was the most impressive. Although all the refrigerators and cutlery no longer remained, you could see the giant pots which cooked meals for the children still in pristine condition.

Schools closing is a growing problem in Japan, but for a city so close to the 4th major city in Japan, it felt like a more inevitable problem than usual. Deep in the mountains there are also schools hidden and closed down, but not too far from those are also schools running with only 2-3 students and a whole staff of teachers.

Since public schools in Japan are run by the prefectural government and teachers are sent to posts accordingly, as long as a school is open, students have the right to full education as any other school and student. I always thought the students growing up in the countryside were perhaps the most blessed Japanese people because not only do they get to grow up around nature and beauty, but they have also quality education without having to compete at a ginormous school. But that’s just my two cents.

A mural made with drawing from past students and a podium where usually the principal stands during sports days etc.

As I left, I saw a father playing with his two small children in the giant outside courtyard. Although it was sad how the school was no longer running, life persisted as it was still being used by locals.