The Island in Contemporary Art: a curatorial gaze

Abstract

This thesis explores the island in contemporary art through curatorial practice-lead research. It is driven by the perceived lack of critical discourse around this widely used artistic and curatorial motif. To understand the inherited concepts of ‘islandness’ and island metaphor, this thesis first maps the subject of island encounter within a broad range of Western historical, theoretical, literary and creative works. By doing so, a sequence of stages to island encounter is made visible – dreaming, journey, contact, settlement and departure. Island encounters marked by this type of sequence both generate and propagate enduring tropes of island figuration in the Western imagination. The practice-lead research of this thesis is explored through three curatorial case studies. The first, Nowhereisland (2012) by British artist Alex Hartley, wholly subscribes to the aforementioned sequence of island encounter. It demonstrates how island approach has continuing relevance in the twenty-first century, but also how island tropes might prove artistically or curatorially generative. Beyond simply replicating the masculine heroics of colonisation, the island of Nowhereisland offers an alternative political and philosophical position on burgeoning questions of climate change and political efficacy. The two remaining case studies – Ash Island and its Transformations (2014) and The Island Could be Heard by Night (2015) – constitute curatorial investigations into concepts of place, memory and the construction of history, through the island motif. These case studies demonstrate the qualities shared by the island and the exhibition: both are unique spatial and temporal devices, offering an overview and compression of space and time; both are marked and enlivened by visitation; both are approached thematically; and, as a combination of these ideas, both the island and the exhibition are short-term, often an experimental occupation of location, ideas or philosophies. This thesis offers a unique contribution to the field of contemporary art by critically considering contemporary curatorial practices and philosophies by way of island studies, and vice versa.