Everywhere and nowhere

I've been a citizen of Nowhereisland (or Nowhereian, as we seem to be called) for almost a year. For anyone not familiar with Alex Hartley's project, its starting point was a piece of land in the High Arctic that was revealed by the melting of a retreating glacier. Material from the island was loaded on to a barge, sailed into international waters and declared a new nation on 20th September 2011. It's since been the focal point for a year-long conversation between all sorts of people about ideas such as utopia, citizenship, territory, nationhood and environment. Now in its last days, it's working its way around the Southwest peninsula, mooring off the coast while its mobile embassy gets to work engaging with the public.

I really I bought into the idea of Nowhereisland - but for most of the year that's all it's been: an idea. I was looking forward to an encounter with some real people and real stuff in Torquay, where the project spent Monday and Tuesday.  It's fun: the island sitting in the sea and a converted horsebox on the shore looking a bit like a jolly icecream kiosk, with happy crowds around it. The kiosk is the Nowhereisland embassy - and it's a real cabinet of curiosities, beautifully made, with lots of drawers and cupboards and racks containing documentation, souvenirs, rock samples, glacial melt water, wellington boots, photos of polar bears, and books and records related to the idea of nowhere and islands.

Nowhereisland has impressive credentials and there's lots to admire about it. But I get no sense of the excitement Alex Hartley must have felt when he first saw the possibility of claiming new land. The vision that set this whole thing in motion seems almost forgotten under an accumulation of details and engagement strategies. It won my mind but it hasn't won my heart.

Nowhereisland by Alex Hartley is a Situations project, one of 12 Artists Taking the Lead projects across the UK, funded by the Arts Council of England, which form part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad in summer 2012.

http://nowhereisland.org/
http://situations.org.uk