The art here has come outside. Towada's Kanchōgai-dōri is a wide, straight administrative avenue lined with government offices and schools, and the contemporary art museum opens onto it through windows that show you the galleries from the pavement, so that what would ordinarily require a ticket is visible to anyone walking past. After a few minutes the distinction between a visitor and a passer-by stops being a useful one, and you notice that you have stopped trying to make it. Works stand out in the plaza and along the footpath as well, and people on their way to work pass them every morning without breaking stride or turning their heads.

The avenue was laid out for cavalry and later for civic offices, which is why it is far wider than the traffic requires, and that surplus width is what made room for any of this. It is a city of sixty-odd thousand. Hachinohe is an hour away by car, the winters bring real snow, and none of that is incidental to how the place feels in February.

There is something quietly odd about a municipal boulevard that doubles as a gallery, and the oddness wears off considerably faster than you expect it to. By the second pass you are simply on a street again, which is either a failure or the entire achievement, depending on how you look at it. The pieces do not announce themselves, and nobody standing nearby is looking at them. That indifference is what makes the arrangement work, and it is very easy to miss on a short visit. Come to walk the avenue rather than to see the collection, and let the collection happen on the way.