Notes on the small museum in Odaiba

I’ve visited the immersive art museum on Odaiba four times now, three of them alone. This is the long version of my notes, written as a letter to the friend who kept asking “is it worth it?”.

What it is

It is a very large indoor art space in Tokyo, on Odaiba, where the exhibits are made of light projected onto surfaces — walls, ceilings, small mirrored rooms, water. The rooms open into one another without a fixed route; you wander. Some rooms are quiet corridors. Some are a single object with slow-moving projections. One is a large mirrored hall with hanging lanterns, each of which changes colour when you approach.

It photographs beautifully and it photographs badly, and both are honest.

The visit itself

You arrive at a specific arrival slot. You leave your shoes in a locker at the entrance if you plan to enter the water room (I recommend you plan to). You walk barefoot in slippers for the rest of the visit. The whole thing takes between two and four hours depending on how many times you re-enter the corridors you liked.

The average visitor stays about two and a half. I have never left before three.

The water-installation room

A room where the floor is a shallow pool of water, about mid-shin depth, and the water is the canvas for koi projections. The koi swim around your legs and change direction if you step. On a slow evening it’s one of the most quietly beautiful things in Tokyo.

Honest warning: it is genuinely up-to-your-knees in one section. Not for shoes you love; not for trousers you love, either. Roll them, wear the given wraps, or wear shorts — whatever you do, don’t be surprised in the room. Half the visitors in front of me last time were surprised.

The honest bits

• The crowds at the top of the hour are real. The entrances open in half-hour arrival waves, and the corridors around the first two rooms fill for about twelve minutes after each wave. If you can arrive on the quarter-hour mark, you get an easier first fifteen minutes.
• Evening slots are noticeably more expensive. I’m not going to tell you what they cost (I don’t sell tickets and I don’t track prices), but if you have flexibility, the mid-afternoon slot on a Tuesday is calm, cheap and photographs just as well as the sunset one.
• Even with a booked slot, there is a queue. Ten to twenty-five minutes at the entrance, plus checking bags, plus lockers. Budget an extra half hour beyond your arrival window.
• The water room does have small children in it. If you are looking for quiet contemplation, do it late.
• No tripods, no flash. Reasonable. Your phone will handle most of it, and your fast prime lens will handle the rest. Bring a wrist strap so you don’t drop the camera in the koi.

What I keep going back for

There is a room, at the top of a small flight of stairs, that is entirely dark except for one very slow projection of a waterfall onto three walls. The room is usually almost empty because it’s not on the main path. On my third visit I sat in it for twenty-two minutes, alone for eight of them. If the whole point of the museum is that a picture of light isn’t the same as standing in it, this is the room that proves it.

A small note on the second museum

The same operator has a second, smaller space in central Tokyo, and it’s a different kind of visit — less water, more forest. I’ve been twice. Both times I preferred the Odaiba space; both times my visiting friends preferred the central one. Take that as you will.

Would I recommend it?

Yes. It’s a specific experience and it deserves the visit — go on a Tuesday afternoon, go alone if you can, go for the room I described above, and stay in it for a while. If you go for the queue-photo of a specific lantern hall you saw on someone’s feed, you’ll get that photo and you’ll probably be a little disappointed. The museum works better as a quiet visit than as a filmed one.

— J.