Motoi Yamamoto’s “Toward the White Sea” at Onomichi City Museum of Art Until November 15; A Hometown Retrospective Drawn with Three Tons of Salt

“Toward the White Sea: Memories Turn White and Return to the Sea,” a retrospective of Motoi Yamamoto, an artist known for installations made with salt, is on view at the Onomichi City Museum of Art (in Senkoji Park, Onomichi, Hiroshima Prefecture) until Sunday, November 15. Yamamoto was born in Onomichi in 1966 and lives in Kanazawa. In his first retrospective to use the entire museum in his hometown, he traces the 35 years since he entered Kanazawa College of Art in 1991 across six galleries and the observation lobby. About three tons of salt are used in the venue.

Who is Motoi Yamamoto? From shipyard lathe operator to an artist who draws with salt

Yamamoto lived in Onomichi until he was 25. After graduating from a technical high school, he worked as a lathe operator at a shipyard in Onomichi and entered Kanazawa College of Art in 1991. After graduating, he continued making art while working at an ironworks in Ishikawa Prefecture, and he now devotes himself entirely to his art.

He received the Wasaku Kobayashi Award (Onomichi City Art Award) in 2014 and the Kanazawa City Cultural Activity Award in 2019. He has shown work in 13 countries, at venues including MoMA PS1, the State Hermitage Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, the Pola Museum of Art and the Setouchi Triennale. This is his third presentation in Onomichi, following “AIR Onomichi 2007” and “Crossroads: Art Corridor of Sea and Mountains 2017.”

Why salt? “I keep making so as not to forget”

Yamamoto lost his younger sister in 1994 and his wife in 2016. According to the press materials, he has kept drawing lines so as not to forget his sister and wife, and to resist his own forgetting. Salt is the material he chose to hold on to invisible things such as memory and time. The commemorative lecture held on the opening day, September 19, was also titled “I Keep Making So as Not to Forget.”

On the final day of the exhibition, visitors will break up the work by hand and return the salt to the sea at Onomichi. Since 2006, Yamamoto has carried out the “Return to the Sea Project” around the world, in which he and the people gathered on the last day of an exhibition dismantle the work and return the salt to the sea. According to the artist’s official website, the total number of participants runs to several thousand. In 2025, the project also took place at the Kortrijk Triennale in Belgium. This time, it will be held in the sea where Yamamoto grew up.

Highlights: A floor of three tons of salt and some 400 fragments from Noto

The venue presents everything from oil paintings from his student days to his signature salt floor installations and recent large two-dimensional works. In Gallery 4, for the first four days after the opening, he drew a work covering the entire floor in front of visitors in a public production session. Yamamoto works alone and never redraws a line once it is drawn. The artist’s official website describes the exhibition as his largest solo exhibition.

The new work is a reconstruction of a piece that collapsed in the Noto Peninsula Earthquake. “Corridor to Memory,” which Yamamoto created in 2021 in a former nursery school in Suzu, Ishikawa Prefecture, collapsed in the earthquake on New Year’s Day 2024. About 400 of the countless fragments, made by gathering the crumbled salt and sealing it in resin, hang in a dark gallery. After the exhibition, the work will return to Oku-Noto.

The roughly three tons of salt used in the exhibition is provided by Naikai Salt Industries of Tamano, Okayama Prefecture.

The “Return to the Sea Project” on the final day and related displays in Onomichi and Tamano

• Gallery talk (by a curator): Sunday, November 8, 14:00–14:45. Free, no application required; exhibition admission required

• Return to the Sea Project: Sunday, November 15, 15:30–17:00 (reception from 15:00), Galleries 4 and 6. Participants break up the salt work together with Yamamoto and return it to the sea at Onomichi. They can also take salt home and return it to the sea themselves later. Free, no application required; exhibition admission required. According to the artist’s official website, the event at the museum is expected to end around 16:00, after which participants will gather on site at the Onomichi shore (location being arranged)

• Wasaku Week 2026 “Where the White Path Lies”: Weekends and holidays from Saturday, October 31 to Sunday, November 15, and Wednesday, November 4, 13:00–17:00, at VILLA WASAKU (2-18-21 Nagae, Onomichi), the former residence of painter Wasaku Kobayashi. A gold folding-screen work is displayed and the short documentary film “REQUIEM IN SALT” is screened. Organized by the NPO Onomichi Akiya Saisei Project and AIR Onomichi

• Setouchi Industrial Art Festival 2026: Until Saturday, October 31, a salt installation was on display at the salt factory of Naikai Salt Industries (Tamano, Okayama Prefecture). It is one of the seven industrial-site venues in Okayama and Ehime of this festival, held for the first time, and required advance reservation. The artist’s official website said that all tickets for tours and individual viewing had sold out

Admission and access

Admission is 1,000 yen for adults and 600 yen for students, and free for junior high school students and younger. Opening hours are 9:00–17:00 (last entry 16:30), and the museum is closed on Mondays.

The museum is in Senkoji Park, near the summit of Mt. Senkoji. From JR Onomichi Station, it is about a 15-minute walk to the base station (Nagaeguchi) of the Senkoji-san Ropeway, then a ride of about three minutes up the mountain and about a five-minute walk from the summit station. The ropeway costs 500 yen one way and 700 yen round trip for adults. There are also buses bound for Senkoji Park from bus stop 5 in front of the station, but direct services are few and do not run on weekends, holidays, during Obon or over the New Year holidays. Walking from the station takes about 30 to 40 minutes, with many slopes and stairs. The museum has no parking of its own; visitors use the Senkoji Park parking lot (standard cars, per visit: 800 yen on weekdays, 1,000 yen on weekends and holidays).

Overview

Name: Toward the White Sea: Memories Turn White and Return to the Sea (Onomichi City Museum of Art Autumn Special Exhibition: Motoi Yamamoto)
Dates: Saturday, September 19 – Sunday, November 15, 2026
Hours: 9:00–17:00 (last entry 16:30)
Closed: Mondays
Venue: Onomichi City Museum of Art
Address: Senkoji Park, 17-19 Nishitsuchidocho, Onomichi, Hiroshima
Admission: Adults 1,000 yen, students 600 yen, junior high school students and younger free
Organizers: Onomichi City Museum of Art, The Chugoku Shimbun Bingo Head Office
Planning cooperation: YUKIKOMIZUTANI
Inquiries: 0848-23-2281
Official website: https://www.onomichi-museum.jp/exhibition/now.html
*Information as of October 20, 2026. Please check the official website for the latest information.

*Top image: Return to the Sea Project, Kortrijk Triennale 2025 [Belgium]. Photo: Mathieu Van de Sompel (from a press release by Composition Inc.)

*This article was compiled by the TOKYO ART SPHERE editorial team based on press materials about the exhibition distributed by Composition Inc. (September 15, 2026) and information on the official websites of the Onomichi City Museum of Art and the artist.

Text: TOKYO ART SPHERE Editorial Team