Missing Post Office, Art installation in Awashima, Japan
The Missing Post Office reuses an old postal station on Awashima island where metal containers filled with correspondence hang from ceiling wires and clatter in the breeze. The exterior preserves the original signage of the mail facility while inside the suspended vessels form an installation that shifts with air movement.
Artist Saya Kubota launched the project in 2013 during the Setouchi Triennale by converting a mail facility that had served the island for five decades. The former postmaster stayed connected to the building after regular services closed and now oversees the artistic space.
Visitors explore shelves lined with anonymous correspondence that never reached its destination, browsing through personal thoughts left for strangers to discover. The artist created a system where undelivered words find new readers willing to carry them forward into the world.
The building opens on Saturday afternoons for three hours and sits roughly ten minutes on foot from the harbor. Admission costs 300 yen and visitors can move freely through the rooms to view the hanging correspondence.
Mr. Nakada, who once ran the official post office, still receives hundreds of letters from across Japan that now enter the installation rather than being delivered. The collection grows steadily as people send their words to this address even though no specific recipient exists.
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