Haikyo: The Surreal Magnetism of Abandoned Places
When the spaces and structures of human life are abandoned, an eerie and ethereal void opens up.
The remnants of everyday life are left static and still. A strange liminality is suspended in the atmosphere of empty family homes with decaying tatami floors; the rotting plush bedding and peeling wallpaper of love hotels; deserted high schools with ceilings collapsed onto desks.
Who lived here? Why did they leave? When human imagination and curiosity encounter these spaces, the void becomes tantalising and generative. It can be filled with stories pieced together from forgotten objects, the sensation of a haunting presence, or a forlorn sense of the transcience of all things.
This complex experience is what haikyo-maniacs are all about. Haikyo - literally ‘ruins’ - is the Japanese subculture of discovering and exploring abandoned and ruinous man-made structures. It's difficult not to come across haikyo in Japan - the collapse of the bubble economy in the late 1980s saw a mass abandonment of property investments and business ventures, and thousands of them still stand.
These can be otherworldly. A sprawling luxe hotel in subtropical Okinawa, with chandeliers smothered by vegetation. Once-thriving towns, now silent and crumbling. A spaceship-themed love hotel.
Haikyo has a flourishing online community on blogs and forums. Importantly, no one gives out exact locations or maps, so as to preserve sites and the secrecy inherent to haikyo’s appeal. Instead, you must track down locations using hints and clues, satellite photos or in-person exploration. The hunt for haikyo combines with the potential danger of some loose rubble or a run-in with the police to create a heady thrill.
But with increased information sharing via social media and GPS, popular haikyo locations become hotspots for rebellious kids and edgy content creators - and inevitably the attention of the authorities.
Here lies a fatal paradox: whilst the element of discovery is an intrinsic part of haikyo, it is via this very discovery that places lose their special magnetism - one that only comes from being left truly abandoned.
Words by Thea Jowsey-Cavanagh.
