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Island Developments: Utopias Adrift

Ever since the publication of Sir Thomas Moore’s hypothetical recounting of the mysterious island called Utopia in 1516, the notion of a perfect social-political state has fired the human imagination. Yet the contradictions inherent in any consideration of this idealized concept have always returned to the same basic reality: utopia is and can only be “no place.” Still, creative agents remain undaunted and the quest for a national embodiment of harmonious order (or the symbolic depiction of its opposite) holds steadfast in the literary, scientific and artistic mind.

For artists Brady Cranfield and Jamie Hilder, this utopian/dystopian paradox takes shape in an archival retelling of two contentious histories: the short-lived independent Republic of Rose Island and American artist Robert Smithson’s nearly realized Island of Broken Glass. Brought together in the exhibition “Island Developments,” these projects offer parallel views on the spectacular promise and ultimate failure of political, social and cultural paragons.

Brady Cranfield and Jamie Hilder Island Developments 2008 Detail / photo Blaine Campbell

The Republic of Rose Island was a man-made platform stationed just off the Italian coast in 1967 by the engineer Giorgio Rosa. A year later, complete with all of the amenities of a modern city-state—a restaurant, a nightclub, a souvenir shop, a post office and a unique currency—Rosa declared the platform an independent nation with Esperanto as its working language. Italian officials thought otherwise of this upstart national entity and quickly intervened, removing the republic’s “citizens” and destroying the state in explosive fashion. Cranfield and Hilder’s installation revives Rose Island with blueprints and a model of the platform as well as archival audio and documents from the “government in exile.” A video of the Vancouver Children’s Choir singing “A Better World” in Esperanto provides a moving if ironic coda.

Brady Cranfield and Jamie Hilder Island Developments 2008 Installation view / photo Blaine Campbell

In 1969, Smithson had developed plans for what would have been his first permanent earthwork (his iconic Spiral Jetty followed in 1970) designed to completely cover the surface of Miami Islet, a small rock island in the middle of the Georgia Strait, with 100 tons of broken glass. While Island of Broken Glass initially enticed city favour, environmental and political pressures superseded Smithson’s vision and the project was cancelled. A version of the work was eventually realized at Dia Beacon, though in a gallery format; it remains an important conceptual touchstone in the history of land art. In a video projection of Miami Islet and archival copies of the correspondence surrounding Smithson’s project, Cranfield and Hilder reflect on the ongoing legacies that exist in the vague promise of what might have been. (233 Carrall St, Vancouver BC)

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