What Do You Think of this Dessert Themed Public Toilet in Japan?

Photo by Yasunori Takeuchi, courtesy Toilennale

What looks like a giant cake, or possibly an ice cream sunday, stands in the street, connected to a park. This is a piece of art. But it’s also a public toilet. It’s both. As part of the 2015 Oita Toilennale, perhaps the world’s first art festival dedicated to toilets, artist Minako Nishiyama conceived of the project. And with the help of artists Mika Kasahara and Yuma Haruna, the 3 female artists brought “Melting Dream” to life.

Photo by Yasunori Takeuchi, courtesy Toilennale

But the candy colored toilet is not all sweets. Aside from being subliminally erotic, the structure is embedded with some rather dark premonitions.

Photos by photographer min

“The concept of the piece is that Japan, the sweet country of ambiguity, is beginning to crumble,” says Nishiyama.

Photo by photographer min

The original idea for the piece dates back to the Fukushima nuclear incident 4 years ago. Nishiyama worries that people are going about their daily lives as if nothing changed.

Photos by photographer min