In 2000, the Japanese conceptual artist Shimabuku (born 1969 in Kobe) initiated one of the most rigorously eccentric interspecies collaborations in contemporary art history. Entitled Then, I Decided to Give a Tour of Tokyo to the Octopus from Akashi, the multi-media video project required the artist to travel to the Akashi Sea in Hyōgo Prefecture. The Akashi Strait is biologically renowned for its fast-moving tidal currents, which produce particularly muscular and highly prized common octopuses (Octopus vulgaris). After local fishermen assisted in capturing a live specimen, Shimabuku eschewed the culinary fate typical of the region’s catch. Instead, he deposited the cephalopod into a custom-built, temperature-controlled aquarium, carefully monitoring the dissolved oxygen levels, and boarded a Shinkansen bullet train. Over the course of the 600-kilometre, three-hour transit from Nishi-Akashi station to the Japanese capital, Shimabuku acted as a terrestrial tour guide for a marine invertebrate.
The Apollo Project of the Benthic Zone
Upon arriving in Tokyo, the artist and his aquatic companion visited the 333-metre-tall Tokyo Tower in Minato, before proceeding to the historic Tsukiji fish market in Chūō Ward. At Tsukiji – which operated as the largest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world until its 2018 relocation to Toyosu – the octopus was confronted with the sight of its harvested kin displayed on crushed ice. According to Shimabuku, the animal “reacted very strongly” to this macabre tableau. Following the conclusion of this urban itinerary, the artist returned the octopus safely to the saline waters of the Akashi coast.
Shimabuku subsequently categorised this 24-hour artistic intervention as his personal “Apollo project.” He drew a direct structural parallel between humanity launching astronauts to the desolate lunar surface in 1969 and his own mission to transport a highly intelligent benthic organism into the alien, oxygen-rich metropolis of modern Tokyo. It was a gesture designed to bridge a massive evolutionary divide, treating an animal historically viewed as seafood as an intrepid explorer.
Neurobiology and the Capacity for Leisure
To understand Shimabuku’s two-decade fixation on octopuses, one must examine the extraordinary biological architecture of the species. Unlike the majority of marine animals whose biological imperatives are strictly confined to survival, caloric intake, and procreation, the octopus possesses an anomalous neurological surplus. An Octopus vulgaris boasts approximately 500 million neurons – a count roughly equivalent to that of a domestic dog. Crucially, a mere one-third of these neurons reside within the central brain structure. The remaining two-thirds are distributed throughout the nerve cords of their eight prehensile arms.
This decentralised nervous system permits each arm to process tactile stimuli, taste chemical compositions, and execute complex mechanical decisions autonomously without consulting the central brain. Observing this immense processing power, Shimabuku hypothesised that octopuses possess the cognitive bandwidth for what humans term “leisure.” This theoretical framework diverges sharply from traditional biological utilitarianism, suggesting instead that these organisms have the subjective capacity for hobbies, aesthetic preference, and purposeless wandering.
The Curator of the Ocean Floor
Shimabuku’s hypothesis was grounded in empirical observations gathered during his youth in the coastal city of Kobe. He became intimately familiar with takotsubo, a traditional Japanese fishing technique dating back to the Yayoi period (300 BCE–300 CE). Fishermen sink unbaited, narrow-necked earthenware pots to the seafloor, exploiting the octopus’s thigmotactic nature – its biological drive to seek the physical security of confined, solid spaces. When the fishermen hauled these ceramic traps to the surface, Shimabuku noted that the animals rarely arrived empty-handed.
They routinely carried an assortment of detritus: bivalve shells, polished stones, and even the hazardous, glinting shards of discarded beer bottles. In the artist’s view, the octopuses were not merely surviving; they were actively curating their micro-environments, assembling what he termed “a collection of a collection.” This profound realisation culminated in his 2003 piece, Catching Octopus with Self-Made Ceramic Pots, which interrogated the intersection of human craft and animal habitation.
Shimabuku’s ability to seamlessly integrate the natural world into urban, anthropogenic contexts mirrors broader contemporary movements. For instance, urban planners and architects are increasingly focused on cultivating community and nature in UK cities, seeking to foster environments where non-human life is accommodated and integrated rather than aggressively expelled.
Sculpture for Octopuses: Reversing the Paradigm
If an octopus is capable of curatorial curation, Shimabuku reasoned, it might also possess the capacity for aesthetic appreciation. This conceptual leap generated his critically acclaimed 2010 installation, Sculpture for Octopuses: Exploring for Their Favorite Colors. Historically, human interaction with the octopus has been fundamentally exploitative, defined exclusively by the extraction of protein. Shimabuku sought to subvert this paradigm by transforming the takotsubo trap into a purely altruistic offering.
He manufactured a series of smooth, vibrantly coloured glass spheres and bespoke ceramic vessels, explicitly designed for the tactile pleasure of the animals. Initially, these sculptures were unceremoniously cast into the ocean as blind offerings. However, the artist’s desire for empirical feedback necessitated a controlled environment. Collaborating with the Suma Aqualife Park – a municipal aquarium in Kobe established in 1957 – Shimabuku introduced his twelve glass and ceramic sculptures into a large, sand-bottomed observation tank. He then filmed the captive residents’ reactions.
The documentation revealed highly deliberate, non-predatory interactions. The octopuses enveloped the objects with their arms, utilising the tens of thousands of chemoreceptors located within their suckers to analyse the slick, non-porous textures of the glass. They rolled the spheres across the synthetic seabed and hoarded the coloured vessels in the corners of the enclosure. “Maybe they have too many hands,” Shimabuku mused regarding the footage, “so they want to grab something.” The visual data strongly indicated that the art fulfilled a physical, and perhaps cognitive, requirement to touch and manipulate novel geometries.
The ongoing discourse surrounding Shimabuku’s work demonstrates how interspecies art is radically reshaping gallery spaces globally. As highlighted in upcoming previews of Europe’s most anticipated exhibitions, curators are increasingly prioritising works that deconstruct anthropocentric narratives in favour of profound ecological egalitarianism.
Interspecies Solidarity and Contemporary Exhibitions
While Shimabuku explicitly avoids categorising his video works and sculptures as strict ethological science, his projects function as a rigorous form of cross-species diplomacy. He has noted anecdotal evidence from Hyōgo fishermen suggesting that octopuses demonstrate a distinct visual preference for the colour red. Yet, his own installations suggest an equally potent attraction to the reflective, frictionless surface of polished glass. His methodology is defined by patience, dedicating decades to maintaining a strange, silent dialogue with an evolutionary lineage that diverged from our own over 600 million years ago.
This sustained dedication continues to manifest in major institutional showcases. In 2024, his exhibition at the Centro Botín in Santander, Spain, featured the piece Going to Meet the Octopuses in Santander. In this iteration, Shimabuku discarded the confines of the municipal aquarium entirely. Working alongside local Cantabrian divers, he lowered intricately blown glass vessels directly onto the rocky Atlantic seafloor. The resulting high-definition video documentation captured wild octopuses cautiously emerging from their benthic crevices to investigate the alien, transparent architecture introduced into their sovereign territory.
Domestically, British audiences are currently provided the opportunity to witness the remnants and documentation of this 24-year dialogue. Portions of Shimabuku’s vast aquatic archives are presently on view in two prominent UK exhibitions: More than Human in London, which interrogates the porous boundaries between human supremacy and animal intelligence, and Sea Inside in Norwich, which focuses on the coastal geographies that inform his practice. These exhibitions display not merely the physical artefacts – the ceramic pots and glass spheres – but the profound paradigm shift they represent. They ask gallery-goers to discard the anthropocentric assumption that art is exclusively a human endeavour.
Shimabuku’s subaquatic methodology provides a fascinating counterpoint to terrestrial art scenes in the Southern Hemisphere, where creators are similarly navigating post-colonial ecology. A deep dive into exploring the vibrant landscape of Australian contemporary art reveals parallel artistic endeavours that seek to reconcile human industry with ancient environmental intelligence.
Ultimately, Shimabuku’s practice forces the observer to confront a humbling biological reality: the ocean is not a vacant expanse waiting to be harvested, but a densely populated metropolis of minds. Through his glass spheres, ceramic pots, and Tokyo rail tickets, the artist proves that empathy requires neither shared language nor shared biology – only the willingness to offer a gift to a stranger in the deep.
