Cat Island Blues by Katherine Longly presented by L’Enfant Sauvage takes us to Aoshima, a tiny one-kilometer-long island bathed by the waters of Japan’s Seto Inland Sea. At its peak in the 1940s, the island had nearly 900 inhabitants, most of whom made a living from fishing. The population then declined rapidly. In 2013, it became—much against its will—a popular attraction for tourists from all over Japan, and even from around the world, because of its large colony of cats. Today, only three elderly people and around forty aging felines remain on the island. But what happened on Aoshima?
In Cat Island Blues, Katherine Longly recounts her experience on this island: from the surprise at the gap between the images posted by tourists—which had drawn her there—and the reality, to the deep attachment she formed with the place over the course of her visits, over several years. She offers us a fragile and singular story—that of the people and the cats of Aoshima.
This story echoes the profound demographic shifts reshaping contemporary Japan, and also questions, more broadly, the impact of overtourism, end-of-life choices, and our way of sharing the world with other species. But above all, Cat Island Blues seeks to preserve the memory of an island with a unique destiny, just before it disappears.
To tell Aoshima’s story in all its complexity, this project goes beyond the framework of photography and takes the form of an installation composed of different kinds of images and documents:
- Color photographic prints on ultra-thin awagami Japanese paper, framed with wood sourced from the island of Aoshima itself
- A gallery of cat portraits, in black and white, on awagami paper, reworked using a painterly technique to preserve all their dignity
- Archival documents collected in the region’s libraries and from local historians
- Videos from different periods
Katherine Longly : Cat Island Blues
January 16 – March 15, 2026
L’Enfant Sauvage
Rue de l’Enseignement 23
1000 Brussels, Belgium
https://www.enfantsauvagebxl.com/
