The Nauru Project

January 31st - Nauru National Day

2012-01-31T11:12:00.004Z

Nauru celebrates its national pavilion day at the World Expo in Shanghai 2010.

Manila, Philippines – Nauru celebrates its National Day today. Located in the Western Pacific Ocean, Nauru is an oval-shaped island which is located 42 kilometers south of the equator. The island is the world’s smallest island nation, just 21 square kilometers. The nearest country to Nauru is Kiribati, whose Ocean Island is 350 kilometers to the east. The island was initially named “Pleasant Island” by English visitors in the 18th century. The present inhabitants of Nauru are of mixed Polynesian, Micronesian, and Melanesian races. About four-fifths of the people are Christians. Nauruans and English are the main languages.
During the first half of the 20th century, Nauru was a “rentier state,” a term to describe those states whose national revenues are mostly derived from renting indigenous resources to external clients. These Nauruan resources came from phosphate reserves. As early as 1907, Nauru was a major exporter of phosphate. However, in the 1980s, the phosphate deposits ran out after numerous years of mining.
Nauru is a member of various regional and international organizations. These include the United Nations, Pacific Islands Forum, the South Pacific Regional Environmental Program, Commonwealth of Nations, and the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission.
Commercial and agricultural exchanges have been active between the Philippines and Nauru. The linguistic, religious, and ethnic affinities between our two peoples are responsible for the close bilateral relations.
We greet the people and government of Nauru led by H.E., President Sprent Dabwido, on the occasion of its National Day. We wish them the best and success in all their endeavors. MABUHAY!

Copyright © 2012 Tempo – News in a Flash. All rights reserved.

The Nauru Project Workshop @ Frown Tails, ReMap KM 3

2012-01-25T13:07:00.009Z

Workshop
Saturday 24/9/2011
www.nauruproject.blogspot.com
RSVP to info@frowntails.com

The Nauru Project is an on-going artists' collaboration based on the South Pacific island of Nauru, the world's smallest island nation. The project involves exchanging information on the history of the island and other related subjects as well as the creation of artworks as a result of this pool of findings.
The workshop will focus on examining online findings relating to Nauru and its history in relation to colonialism and the West as well as other links and information relevant to island themes, self-declared micro-nations, experimental states, artists’ residencies and projects on islands as well as fictional islands and non-territorial internet states.
Maria Georgoula will present the project’s collaborators, ongoing research, artistic function and its relationship to the internet while participants of the workshop will then be invited to trace their individual online path around above subjects while using the blog as a basis and while being guided by the artist. The purpose of the project will be exploring the material provided, creating new links and enriching it by contributing their own findings and sharing their own approach to the above themes with the rest of the group in the form of discussion and presentations.

Recycled Island

2012-01-03T18:47:00.007Z

P.O.Box 11087, 3004EB Rotterdam, Netherlands
Recycled island is a proposal to make a new floating island, from the existing plastic waste that is floating in our Oceans.

Recycled island is a research project on the potential of realizing a habitable floating island in the Pacific Ocean made from all the plastic waste that is momentarily floating around in the ocean.

The proposal has three main aims; Cleaning our oceans from a gigantic amount of plastic waste; Creating new land; And constructing a sustainable habitat. Recycled island seeks the possibilities to recycle the plastic waste on the spot and to recycle it into a floating entity. The constructive and marine technical aspects take part in the project of creating a sea worthy island.

The main characteristics of the island are summarized:
1. Realized from the plastic waste in our Oceans. This will clean our Oceans intensely and it will change the character of the plastic waste from garbage to building material. The gathering of the plastic waste will become a lot more attractive.
2. The island is habitable, where it will have its value as land capturing and is a potential habitat for a part of the rising amount of climate refugees.
3. The habitable area is designed as an urban setting. Nowadays already half of the World population lives in urban conditions, which has a huge impact on nature. The realization of mixed-use environments is our hope for the future.
4. The island is constructed as a green living environment, from the point of view of a natural habitat. The use of compost toilets in creating fertile ground is an example in this.
5. It is a self sufficient habitat, which is not (or hardly) depending from other countries and finds its own resources to survive. The settlement has its own energy and food sources.
6. The island is ecologic and not polluting or affecting the world negatively. Natural and non polluting sources are used to let the island exist in harmony with nature.
7. The size of the floating city is considerable in relation to the huge amount of plastic waste in the Ocean. The largest concentration of plastic has a footprint the size of France and Spain together. Starting point is to create an island with the coverage of 10.000Km2. This is about the size of the island Hawaii.
8. The location is the North Pacific Gyre, where at this moment the biggest concentration of plastic waste is discovered. This is geographically a beautiful spot North-East to Hawaii. By recycling and constructing directly on the spot with the biggest concentration of plastic waste, long transports are avoided. Because of the floating character the position could eventually be altered.

The Nauru Project @ Frown Tails ReMap 3

2011-10-09T18:22:00.015+01:00

Το Nauru Project είναι ένα συνεχές, διαδικτυακό, συνεργασιακό project με θέμα το νησί Ναουρού, το υπο-πτώχευση μικρότερο νησί-κράτος στον κόσμο. Με βάση το blog (www.nauruproject.blogspot.com), το project περιλαμβάνει την ερασιτεχνική συλλογή και ανταλλαγή ποικίλων πληροφοριών γύρω απο το νησί Nαουρού, καθώς και την παραγωγή καλλιτεχνικού έργου με βάση τα σχετικά ευρήματα.
Φιλοξενούμενοι της ομάδας Frown Tails, οι συντελεστές του Nauru Project θα επιχειρήσουν τη δραματοποίηση διαδικτυακών πληροφοριών που υπάρχουν στο blog, μέσω ατομικών tutorials.

Workshop
Σάββατο 24/9
To workshop επικεντρώνεται στην ανταλλαγή συνειρμών και τη συλλογή ευρημάτων. Mε αφετηρία το νησί του Nauru, oι συμμετέχοντες καλούνται να προσθέσουν στο project το προσωπικό τους διαδικτυακό μονοπάτι. RSVP to info@frowntails.com

Performance
Πέμπτη 29/9, Παρασκευή 30/9
Performers: Πολυξένη Σάββα & Θανάσης Πετρόπουλος
Από τις 17.00- 20.00 παρουσιάζονται προσωπικά tutorials. RSVP to info@frowntails.com
Open Performance: 20.30

Η Μαρία έχει συμμετάσχει σε ομαδικές εκθέσεις όπως: ‘I Do’, Six Dogs Project Space, Αθήνα, ‘Trace’, Sanhe Museum, Χανγκζού, Κίνα, ‘Meteor’, New Court Gallery, Ντάρμπισαϊρ, ‘Giatrakou 28’, ReMap KM 2, Αθήνα, ‘The Culture Industry: Folklore & Clichés’, VOX, Αθήνα, ‘VANM’, Slade Research Centre, Λονδίνο, ‘Urchin Eater’, Yinka Shonibare/Guest Projects, Λονδίνο, ‘Illumination’, Service Point Building, Μάντσεστερ, ‘Calypso’, Videotheque, Sala Rekalde, Μπιλμπάο, ‘Taenu’, Tactile Bosch, Κάρντιφ και ‘The Works of Others’, Whitechapel Library, Λονδίνο. Το 2010, η Γεωργούλα πήρε μέρος στα residencies ‘Kardamili Project’ στην Μάνη και ‘Utopia Project’ στο Ρέθυμνο, ενώ τον Μάρτιο του 2011 το βρετανικό περιοδικό ArtReview την συμπεριέλαβε στο ετήσιο αφιέρωμα ‘ArtReview Future Greats 2011’

Nauru Project, Maria Georgoula

The Nauru Project is an ongoing artists' collaboration based on the collection of information regarding the South Pacific island of Nauru, the world's smallest island nation.
The contributors of the Nauru Project will attempt to dramatise the multiple information of Nauru Project’s blog, via individual’s tutorials given to public and an open performance.
Workshop
Saturday 24/9
This workshop focuses the collection of digital findings related to Nauru island. The participants are invited to create their personal internet path.RSVP to info@frowntails.com
Performance
Thursday 29/9,Friday 30/9
Performers: Polixeni Savva & Thanasis Petropoulos
Book your personal slot from 17.00- 20.00 at info@frowntails.com
Open Performance: 20.30

Maria's selected group exhibitions include; ‘I Do’ at Six Dogs Project Space, Athens, ‘Trace’ at Sanhe Museum, China, ‘Meteor’ at New Court Gallery, Derbyshire, ‘Giatrakou 28’at ReMap KM 2, Athens, ‘The Culture Industry: Folklore & Clichés’ at VOX, Athens, ‘VANM’ at Slade Research Centre, London, ‘Urchin Eater’at Yinka Shonibare/Guest Projects, London, ‘Illumination’ at Service Point Building, Manchester, ‘Calypso’ at Videotheque, Sala Rekalde, Bilbao, ‘Taenu’ at Tactile Bosch, Cardiff and ‘The Works of Others’ at the Whitechapel Library, among others. During 2010, Georgoula took part in the ‘Kardamili Project’ residency in south Peloponnese and the ‘Utopia Project’ residency in Crete. In March 2011, Georgoula was included in ‘ArtReview Future Greats 2011’ the annual feature by the British magazine.

Nauruan Matt Alaeddine sets the world record for the Fattest Contorsionist

2011-09-29T14:07:00.000+01:00

EDMONTON, Canada -- With the ability to press his soles to his cheeks, turn himself into a human dart board, and dislocate his shoulders to escape from a straitjacket and his over 400 pounds, Matt Alaeddine, 30, sets the world record for the Fattest contorsionist.

Photo: The World's Fattest Contorsionist, Matt Alaeddine shows one of his moves. Despite his mountainous size Matt Alaeddine can press the soles of his feet to his cheeks and do the 'sumo' splits. (enlarge photo)

The Guinness world record for the fattest nation was set by the island state of Nauru, where the average BMI is 35.

Guinness World Records also recognized theworld record for the most balls bounce juggled: 11, by Tim Nolan (USA) at the Old Dominion University Fieldhouse in Norfolk, Virginia, United States. The 30-year-old from Edmonton, Canada, has been twisting himself into odd positions for some ten years. He started as a street performer at the Edmonton Fringe Festival. I've always had a fair amount of flexibility that I work on. But I have to work on it and stretch,' he told the Edmonton Journal.
Mr Alaeddine's weight fluctuates between 400lb (28stone) and 450lbs (32stone) depending on the 'candy associated season'. 'Obesity! It's working for me,' he joked. He is part of the Jim Rose Circus that features extreme, often masochistic acts from sword swallowing to genital lifts. Alaeddine is one of three Edmontonians in the American troupe of pain-loving freaks. The roster also includes his friends Ryan Stock and Amber Lynn Walker of the Discovery Channel's Guinea Pig fame. When performing his contortions, Alaeddine stuffs his rolling hillsides into a gold nylon suit labelled "one size fits all" that he bought from the women's section of a hipster-friendly clothing store. 'You go to work every day sitting at a desk,' he told the Journal reporter. 'It's not for me. I mean, some people, they just want to get out there and climb and mountain...I'm not going to climb a mountain. Comedy is my mountain. Contortion is my mountain.'

Source:

www.worldrecordsacademy.org

The Empire of Atlantium

2011-09-18T18:32:00.008+01:00

The Empire of Atlantium is a unique parallel sovereign state based in New South Wales, Australia.
Atlantium recognises that the days of nation-states founded on fixed geographical locations or majority ethnic identities are numbered, as global mobility, cultural evolution, and the growth of electronic communication networks render the assumptions that underlie and provide justification for their existence increasingly obsolete.

In an age where people increasingly are unified by common interests and purposes across - rather than within - traditional national boundaries Atlantium offers an alternative to the discriminatory historic practice of assigning nationality to individuals on the basis of accidents of birth or circumstance.

Atlantium has a heritage that spans three decades. What began as a local political statement by three Sydney teenagers on 3rd Decimus, 10500 (27th November, 1981) has since evolved into the world's foremost non-territorial global sovereignty movement and state entity, with a diverse, rapidly growing population living in some ninety countries.

Atlantium is predicated on a belief in the inevitability and the desirability of eventual global social, economic and political union, and it operates as a secular, pluralistic, liberal, social democratic republican monarchy. We encourage the active participation of Citizens in the public life of the Empire, and invite anyone with the desire and motivation to forge their own destiny as a true citizen of the world to consider joining us.

George II
Imperator et Primvs Inter Pares
Sovereign Head of State

Nauru

2011-09-18T18:30:00.002+01:00

Lilypad City - BBC News

2011-09-18T18:26:00.000+01:00

It has pretty much become universally accepted that global warming is having an effect on global ocean levels. The effects of sea level rise are potentially devastating with millions of coastal and island inhabitants at risk of being displaced. For example, it is predicted that within 60 years the island nation of Kiribati, home to 90,000 people will be completely submerged beneath the sea.

In response to this potential devestation, engineers and scientists are attempting to come up with ways to support a growing population on less land. One of the more interesting proposals is known as “Lilypad.” Lilypad is a floating Ecopolis for climate change refugees.

Designed to house up to 50,000 people Lilypad travels the ocean currents from the equator to the poles following marine streams. Lilypad is a prototype of an auto-sufficient amphibious city. The city will feature green technologies such as solar, wind, tidal and biomass energy production. The double skin exterior of the city will be constructed of polyester fibres covered by a layer of titanium dioxide which reacts with UV rays to enable the absorbtion of atmospheric pollution.

No word on whether or if this type of floating city will ever be developed, but its sad that we have to consider developing these projects in order to preserve human survival.

For more information visit Vincent Callebaut Architects
http://www.vincent.callebaut.org/

2011-09-18T18:07:00.010+01:00

Ουεσσάντ

2011-09-18T17:45:00.004+01:00

Το μικρό βραχώδες νησί Ουεσσάντ λίγο πιο έξω απο τα παράλια της Βρετάνης, αποτελεί το πιο βορειοδυτικό σημείο της Γαλλίας. Εκτός των πολυάριθμων φάρων και ένος σπάνιου είδους μαύρου και ιδιαίτερα κοντού πρόβατου που φέρει το όνομα του νησιού, στο νησί Ουεσσάντ μπορεί κανείς να βρεί και μια βιβλιοθήκη αφιερωμένη αποκλειστικά στην νησιωτική λογοτεχνία.

Εκεί, ο σύλλογος CALI, σύλλογος για τον νησιωτικό πολιτισμό, την τέχνη και την λογοτεχνία, οργανώνει κάθε χρόνο διαγωνισμό για το καλύτερο λογοτεχνικό έργο με θέμα τα νησιά.

Τα Νησιά Όρκνι, Σκοτία

2011-09-18T17:36:00.003+01:00

Οι Ορκάδες (Αγγλικά Orkney IPA ['ɔːkni], Σκωτικά Γαελικά Arcaibh^[1]^[2]) είναι ένα αρχιπέλαγος το οποίο βρίσκεται κοντά στις βόρειες ακτές της Σκωτίας, από τις οποίες απέχει μόλις 16 χιλιόμετρα, και νότια από τα νησιά Σέτλαντ. Το αρχιπέλαγος αποτελείται από περίπου 70 νησιά, από τα οποία κατοικούνται τα 19.^[3] Η συνολική έκταση των νησιών είναι περίπου 990 τ.χλμ. και ο πληθυσμός τους ανέρχεται στους 19.245 κατοίκους.^[4] Το μεγαλύτερο νησί είναι το Μέινλαντ (The Mainland), το οποίο βρίσκεται στο κέντρο του συμπλέγματος και χωρίζει τα υπόλοιπα σε δύο ομάδες, τα βόρεια και τα νότια νησιά. Οι Ορκάδες ανήκουν πολιτικά στο Ηνωμένο Βασίλειο, ενώ διοικητικά αποτελούν την ομώνυμη περιφέρεια (Orkney Islands). Το Κέρκγουολ (Kirkwall) (8.686 κάτοικοι το 2006),^[5] η μεγαλύτερη πόλη και διοικητικό κέντρο, βρίσκεται στο νησί Μέινλαντ.

Το όνομα Ορκάδες μαρτυρείται από τον 1ο π.Χ. αιώνα ή και νωρίτερα, ενώ τα νησιά κατοικούνται εδώ και τουλάχιστον 8.500 χρόνια. Αρχικά κατοικήθηκαν από φυλές της Μεσολιθικής και της Νεολιθικής περιόδου και στη συνέχεια από τους Πίκτους. Το 875 οι Ορκάδες καταλήφθηκαν και προσαρτήθηκαν στη Νορβηγία και εποικίστηκαν από Νορβηγούς. Το 1472 εξαιτίας της αδυναμίας εκπλήρωσης της προικώας συμφωνίας τής Μαργαρίτας της Δανίας προς τον σύζυγό της Ιάκωβο Γ' της Σκωτίας, οι Ορκάδες προσαρτήθηκαν στοΒασίλειο της Σκωτίας.^[6] Στις Ορκάδες βρίσκονται μερικοί από τους παλαιότερους και καλύτερα διατηρημένους αρχαιολογικούς χώρους της Ευρώπης. Ο Πυρήνας των Νεολιθικών Ορκάδων (Heart of Neolithic Orkney) στο νησί Μέινλαντ έχει χαρακτηριστεί ως Μνημείο Παγκόσμιας Πολιτιστικής Κληρονομιάς της UNESCO.

Η υποκείμενη γεωλογική βάση όλων των νησιών αποτελείται από βραχώδεις σχηματισμούς από ερυθρό ψαμμίτη. Το κλίμα είναι ήπιο και η εύφορη γη καλλιεργείται κατά το μεγαλύτερο μέρος της. Η γεωργία αποτελεί τον σημαντικότερο τομέα της οικονομίας, ενώ η αξιοποίηση της αιολικής και της υδάτινης ενέργειας αποκτά ολοένα και μεγαλύτερη σημασία. Οι κάτοικοι των νησιών χρησιμοποιούν μια ιδιαίτερη διάλεκτο και διατηρούν την πλούσια λαογραφική τους παράδοση. Στα νησιά υπάρχει αφθονία άγριας πανίδας, πλούσιας σε θαλάσσια είδη και πτηνά.

Off-Shore Nauru Banking Services Link

2011-09-18T16:18:00.001+01:00

Nauru Music and Images

2011-07-27T20:50:00.001+01:00

NATIONAL ANTHEM OF NAURU

2011-07-27T20:50:00.000+01:00

Nauruan Warrior - Oceania 1880

2011-07-27T14:23:00.000+01:00

Super 8mm film of the visit to Nauru by the Japanese Consul to PNG & Nauru in 1973

2011-06-26T17:47:00.001+01:00

On a plane from Kiribati to Nauru

2011-06-26T17:43:00.001+01:00

Nauru: Shots from the mined area

2011-06-26T17:40:00.000+01:00

Rabbit Island Artist Residency: The Story of a Remote Island in Lake Superior

2011-06-26T17:21:00.004+01:00

Imagine a remote, forested island in the largest body of freshwater in the world. Now imagine living on that island and being a part of one of the most unique and challenging artist residencies in the world. Rabbit Island is that island, and with your help, Rabbit Island will become that residency.

LOCATION

Rabbit Island lies three miles east of Northern Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula on a gentle rise of sandstone which breaks the blue surface of Lake Superior. It is an undisturbed 90 acre island of forest and rock teeming with wildlife; a rugged, northern ecosystem that remains in its natural state, never in its history suffering development or subdivision.

In February 2010 Rob Gorski had the incredible opportunity to purchase the island (he found the ad on Craigslist!) and worked with the local nature conservancy to place an environmental easement on the land, ensuring that the ecosystem would remain protected forever.

With preservation locked in, the next step will be to create a space where artists and creative researchers can draw from this unique wilderness in their practices.

PROJECT NEEDS
The Rabbit Island project specifically revolves around building a solid (but modest) cabin for future residents to stay in and a studio for artists to work in. We plan to build these from the island’s own stone and wood.

With your support we’ll be able to get the supplies and materials to make this all a reality. Here are our main needs—

-Transportation to the island. This includes the very important boat! We plan on buying one second-hand from somebody in the local area so we’ll be able to access the island and transport materials there.

-Chainsaws and an Alaskan/portable saw-mill. The island is heavily forested and we want to create sustainably by using what is locally available. We’ve already worked with an arborist and forestry planner and will continue to work with them to develop a plan to select a small amount of trees from the island which will be processed into sustainably harvested, finished timber using the minimal tools that we have on site.

-Power tools and hand tools. To help during the initial construction these tools will remain in the residency for future artists-in-residence to use.

-Solar panel. To provide charging power for tools and other power needs during the building period and general power for the residency in the future.

ETHOS
Ecological concerns are a growing influence within the consciousness of society and the creative practices of many people. Visual artists, writers, designers, architects, farmers and creative researches of all types are doing some amazing things and we want develop an amazing space for those practices to flourish and be challenged. This artist residency presents some really unique constraints: It is off-the-grid, it is nature in its purist form, it’s an experiment, a laboratory. It is isolated from all centralized forms of transportation, energy production, food industry, and, the world of art. Rabbit Island represents a chance to creatively explore ideas related to the absence of civilization in a well-preserved microcosm.

This is why we want to establish an artist residency on Rabbit Island.

WHAT'S NEXT?
Andrew Ranville, a graduate of the Slade School of Fine Art in London, United Kingdom, will be the principal artist-in-residence and it will be his mission to design and construct these structures, incorporating them into the landscape of the island. He will draw from the experience of his current art practice as well as previous installations in wilderness settings in Europe and America.

Before coming to Kickstarter we’ve been hard at work– last summer Rob and a small team were able to setup a (mostly-completed) Adirondack shelter on the island to establish a home-base to branch from. But without the funds to go on things slowed down quickly. That is where we need you, the Kickstarter community. We are extremely motivated to continue working on the island and have a plan ready to go!

By supporting us you’ll receive our eternal gratitude and a Rabbit Island-specific token of our appreciation! Just take a look at the list on the right for what you’ll receive for your pledge. If you love the idea of Rabbit Island but are simply unable to support us with a monetary pledge at this time we would be grateful if you linked to us on Facebook or Twitter, etc.

If you are backing a physical goods reward from outside the US please add $10 to your pledge to accommodate overseas/international shipping costs. Thanks!

Thanks for reading, please spread the word! If you have any questions, ideas, cheers or jeers, please don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Sincerely,
Rob & Andrew

www.rabbit-island.org
www.robgorski.com
www.andrewranville.com

Nauruan Pop

2011-06-26T17:19:00.000+01:00

2011-06-26T17:16:00.000+01:00

2011-04-24T19:39:00.005+01:00

Islands and the Law: An Interview with Christina Duffy Burnett & Sina Najafi

2011-04-23T15:42:00.005+01:00

CABINET MAGAZINE

Issue 38 Islands Summer 2010

Islands and the Law: An Interview with Christina Duffy Burnett

Sina Najafi and Christina Duffy Burnett

See press on “Islands and the Law: An Interview with Christina Duffy Burnett” in io9and Opinio Juris.

Bounded by water, circumscribed, and discrete, islands arguably constitute a natural geographical model for the classic territorial conception of a state (where sovereignty is thought to extend homogenously across a defined terrestrial region and terminate at the border). At the same time, the historical evolution of imperialism in both the East and the West has meant that most of the world’s actual islands became, at some point, off-shore colonial possessions of a distant metropolitan power. Treated as way stations, outposts, and resupply harbors, these outre-mer acquisitions tended to be spatially and legally marginal, regardless of their economic importance.

Christina Duffy Burnett is a professor of law at Columbia University, where she teaches legal history, immigration, citizenship, and the US Constitution. Much of her work deals with the legal problems that arise at the margins of empire. She spoke with Sina Najafi by phone in June of 2010.

This is a very general question, but let’s take a stab at it anyway: do islands matter in the law?

The best way to get at this may be to start with something quite specific. In the summer of 2003, I stumbled on a 969-page typescript treatise which is kept in the library of the US State Department. Flipping through this great leather-bound brick of onion-skin pages, I gradually absorbed that the whole massive volume had been put together in the 1930s by a lawyer working for the US Government who’d been given a killer assignment. Apparently somebody had walked over to the desk of this poor functionary, scribbling away in some basement office, and said something along the lines of: “You know, we have a bunch of islands in the Pacific and the Caribbean—little islands. How about you figure out what the deal is with all these places, legally speaking.” I was holding the result: The Sovereignty of Islands Claimed Under the Guano Act and of the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, Midway, and Wake. And it was splendid to behold: nearly a thousand pages of intricate legal arguments and historical documentation on the strange history of the United States’ nearly invisible, but surprisingly vast, insular empire.

The Guano Act? What is guano? It’s bat excrement, right?

Yes. And bird doo, too. In this case, it refers to the bird version.

So there was a US law about bird droppings that somehow proves important for thinking about the law of sovereignty?

Indeed. The Guano Islands Act of 1856 arguably laid the legal groundwork for American imperialism.

Can you explain how?

Basically what happened was that in the first half of the nineteenth century, Europeans and Latin Americans figure out that the phosphate-rich deposits of seabird droppings that had accumulated on many small Pacific islands make spectacular fertilizer. The stuff is like magic, and farmers everywhere are suddenly clamoring to get their hands on some. There’s a boom, the price skyrockets, the Peruvians more or less control the market, and supplies are short. Everybody is looking for new sources, there’s tons of fake guano trading hands—it’s chaos. Enter the US farm lobby. Farmers in the United States start pressuring Congress to pass some sort of legislation that will improve domestic access to this vital excrement. The result is the Guano Islands Act, legislation that authorized the United States to take control of a guano island if a citizen discovered it and undertook certain actions to take possession of it.

Hand-colored wood engraving from 1894 depicting guano being collected on one of Peru’s three Chincha islands in the mid-1870s. By this time, very little guano was left on the islands.

What was new about that? Hadn’t Americans been taking possession of new lands more or less since the Mayflower?

Right. In a way, yes. But in another way, not exactly. The history of US territorial expansion is actually very interesting, and not straightforward, legally speaking. As you know, initially there were those original thirteen colonies. But several of them also had “territories.” These were kind of their backlands to the west. When the newly independent states came together to form a union, and to write a constitution, they spent a certain amount of time trying to sort out how the territories were going to fit into the new nation. Hanging over all these negotiations was this broadly shared notion that the United States were destined to expand—indeed, that this emerging polity was likely, eventually, to extend across the continent. To be fair, not absolutely everybody was on board with this, but we are painting with a broad brush here. At any rate, the future of the territories eventually became clear: they were going to become states someday, once there was a proper population, sufficient political organization, etc. So the actual US Constitution contains precious little about the territories: basically there’s a clause stating that Congress will govern them, and another about their admission into statehood.

Is there a provision for acquiring new territories?

Interestingly, no. And this famously worried Thomas Jefferson circa 1800 when the French government offered him something like a third of North America at a fire-sale price—what would eventually be called the Louisiana Purchase. Actually, it’s a great moment, because Jefferson—who tended to be very strict in his constitutional interpretation—even went so far as to draft a constitutional amendment empowering him to acquire new territories for the nation. But then he gets cold feet and sticks the draft in a drawer. About that time, he writes a fantastic letter to a friend about all this, and he says, basically, “Well, you know, the less said about the constitutional difficulties here the better.” Which is pretty much contrary to everything he ever said about the Constitution. Oops. That can happen when you become President.

That process of territorial acquisition continues throughout the nineteenth century. How is territorial expansion out to islands any different?

The answer brings us back around to that thousand-page treatise sleeping in the bowels of the State Department. The key difference has to do withsovereignty. It turns out that there was quite a bit of debate around the passage of the Guano Islands Act. The whole thing made a few people pretty nervous. Was all this, they wondered, some sort of secret plot to start setting up overseas island colonies? There’s resistance to this notion in various quarters. So the bill’s main sponsors—to avoid controversy—go to great lengths to spell out that this business about “claiming” the islands is just about scooping up the guano, nothing more. The original draft of the legislation used the formal language of legal expansion—“territory,” “sovereignty,” and so on—but then, when the objections start, all that comes under a red pen. Out goes the word “territory,” which sounded too permanent, too much like the prelude to statehood. In comes a new word, “appertaining”—as in, these islands appertain to the United States as “possessions.”

And what does that mean, legally speaking?

That’s the beauty of it. Nothing! Or, rather, no one had any idea. It was just a sort of a vague way of saying, “It’s, like, ours, pretty much.” The term “appertaining” had no previous usage in this context. At some point I even tried to sort out where the drafters of the bill got it from. As I recall, the term originated in property law as a way of talking about stuff that came attached to something else, like “the waters appertaining to the estate” or railway sidings that “appertained” to a railway, etc., etc. You can sort of see it drift from talking about the waters and other resources “appurtenant” to the guano islands, to being used to talk about the relationship between the islands themselves and the United States. It was basically a fudge. A way of taking the places as possessions, while being careful not to call themterritories, since that implied constitutional entanglements. It was a way of taking the places without really taking responsibility for them within the federal system. The bill also carefully removed the language of “sovereignty,” since that, too, seemed potentially to entail various obligations under domestic and international law. And finally, to get the bill to pass, they also stuck in a bit about how the United States could get rid of the places if it wanted—that there was no commitment to hang onto these islands after the resources had been stripped or their utility otherwise terminated.

And the act passes in that form?

It does, and boom, there are all these wildcatters and roughnecks throwing up the Stars and Stripes on little mounds of manure all over the world. In the end, more than seventy such islands are actually secured under the act, and many more are claimed (unsuccessfully, for one reason or another). But that’s not the interesting part, really—although it’s curious enough, and there are some great stories about what goes down on these islands: shanghaiing Polynesian laborers, piracy (of course), mutiny, etc. Some of the islands are still claimed by various shady types. Indeed, a rather mysterious gentleman contacted me some years ago in connection with his alleged title to an uninhabited guano island in the Caribbean.

A James Bond villain-type?

I don’t think I can speak any further on that matter over an unsecure line. Now, legally speaking, what’s significant about all this is that the act created a very important and new kind of place in the American legal system. A weird sort of non-place, from a constitutional perspective. These islands “belong” to the US, but they aren’t really a “part” of the United States. What law applies there? Not really so clear. What rights does an American citizen have on such an island? Again, not clear. In one sense, you might say, “Who cares? These are just some rocks out in the middle of nowhere,” but the deeper issue is that this move—withholding sovereignty—turns out to be a key aspect of the expansion of imperial power in the nineteenth century. And in certain disconcerting ways, we see the same move being made more recently in connection with the war on terror: extend power, but disclaim sovereignty—in order to retrench in terms of legal commitments.

Alexander Gardner, “Loading Cars with Guano at the Great Heap, Chincha Islands,” 1865. Spain, which did not recognize Peru’s independence until 1879, occupied the Chincha islands in April 1864 but lost the ensuing war. Courtesy Library of Congress.

So this is what you mean by saying that the Guano Islands Act established a significant aspect of the legal framework for American imperialism.

Right. We tend to think of empires in expansive terms, as projecting across space, but in fact, as far as the law is concerned, the projection of imperial power has frequently traded on the careful refusal to extend formal sovereignty, since this often comes with unpleasant obligations. European empires were especially good at all this: trust territories, informal control, etc. You didn’t want to go out and claim sovereignty over all these messy places. From a legal perspective, that would be a total pain!

But given that the US is born in an anti-colonial revolution, or so Americans like to tell themselves, there must have been resistance to modeling American legal structures on those of, say, the British Empire.

Some, sure. But it is also the case that the United States does very much have its imperial meridian, a moment when it embraces the ideal of a global colonial empire. This is 1898, of course—the Spanish-American War. The US flexes its muscle, crushing an Old World power, and winning, in the process, a mess of islands: the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico. For a while there is a sort of Iraq-style situation in Cuba, too: the US has “liberated” the place, but occupies it, claiming it needs to be “pacified”; US officials insist they want to leave, but don’t. Complicated. In the end, we micromanage their writing of a constitution, and then formally leave, except, of course, for Guantánamo, which we keep.

A legally ambiguous place, for sure.

Indeed, but the whole episode raised vexing constitutional problems from the get-go. Suddenly the US has all these new insular possessions overseas—the spoils of war. And once again, the question is: What’s the status of these places, legally speaking? Are they “territories” in the constitutional sense? They have to be, because that is the only way, under the US Constitution, that Congress can be authorized to govern them. This hadn’t really been an issue on the guano islands, since they had no “governments.”

What about the guys with guns?

Right. There were always the guys with guns. But they tended to be freelance despots, overseers, cowboys with ships—pirate-types. With a few corporations in the mix. None of them focused on governance issues per se. They focused on resource extraction. So 1898 raises new problems. In fact, the acquisition of all these islands circa 1900 leads to something close to a constitutional crisis. If they are territories, then are they going to becomestates? But they are full of hot-blooded, swarthy types! The eugenicists, among others, don’t like it. At the same time, the US Constitution makes no provision for an American empire—for federal “dominion” over peripheral colonies not intended for statehood. All the lawyers are busy reading up on how England and France run their imperial systems, and there are various proposals for how to tweak things in the US to make it all work. In the end, the issues are resolved in a set of Supreme Court decisions handed down in the first decades of the twentieth century, known collectively as the Insular Cases—since they were the cases that determined how the US would deal with all these islands.

So what happened?

Once again, islands serve as the site for legal experimentation and for some questionable legal innovations. It’s clearly unacceptable to a majority of Americans to contemplate these new acquisitions as “really” part of the United States—as in, on the way to statehood. But at the same time, no one wants to just give them away. What about the White Man’s Burden and everything? Kipling actually wrote that poem for this very occasion—to try to get the Americans to strap it on as imperialists. In the end, the court finesses it, and the justices conjure up a distinction between two kinds of US territory: “incorporated” (meaning “en route to statehood,” i.e., “containing a good number of Caucasian Protestants with acceptable table manners”) and “unincorporated” (meaning, more or less, “the US is in charge here”). The latter category was basically invented to give constitutional blessing to the US directly governing a network of colonial islands around the world: they were “unincorporated territories.” In an international sense, they were part of the US, but they weren’t really “the US,” if you know what I mean. One legal opinion described the relationship this way: these islands were “foreign to the United States in a domestic sense.” Got that? The Supreme Court resurrects the language of “appertaining,” too: it says these places are not “part” of the United States, but merely “appurtenant” to it. Meaning what? Well, they’re “ours,” but not “us.”

Wreckage on Palmyra. The plane, carrying seven radio operators, veered off the island’s sole runway as it tried to land on 5 January 1980. Courtesy Laura Beauregard / US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Does the US still have “territories”? Does the incorporated/unincorporated distinction still exist? If so, what significance does it have?

It does. The best way to get at this may again be to zero in on a very particular and legally anomalous island—or, in this case, archipelago—called Palmyra. Palmyra is basically in the middle of the Pacific, slightly south of Hawaii. There’s pretty much nobody there—some sort of caretaker, a few biologists. Anyway, it’s a bunch of little islets, very remote. Nevertheless, this place has the distinction of being the United States’ unique “incorporated” territory. Which is to say, it is not a state, or a part of a state, but it is a “part” of the United States in a fundamental way.

Meaning what, exactly?

Well, people have argued a great deal about what the distinction between incorporated and unincorporated actually meant, legally speaking. In Puerto Rico, where I am from, this issue is positively explosive, since the island was one of those places designated as an unincorporated territory after the Spanish-American War. In fact, I would argue that it remains an unincorporated territory, but those are fighting words on the island—let’s not get into it. Where territorial status is concerned, the basic issue has traditionally been understood to be: “Does the Constitution follow the flag?” Which is to say, if a place belongs to the US, does the Constitution apply there automatically—all the rights and protections it guarantees, etc.? The traditional story has gone like this: the Insular Cases, by making the distinction between incorporated and unincorporated territories, answered this question in the negative. No, just because we hoist the flag does not mean that all these dark people are suddenly entitled to equal protection, jury trials, and all that other good stuff. That stuff is only for theincorporated territories—as they make their way to statehood. With the unincorporated ones, the Constitution, it has been said, “doesn’t apply.” This sort of thing gets pretty hairy as a legal argument, and I do not want to get bogged down in a lot of technical stuff. Suffice it to say that figuring out what constitutional protections apply to what offshore islands has been—and remains!—a very difficult and important legal problem for the United States. As it happens, my own view is that the most important issue at stake in the incorporated/unincorporated distinction is, in fact, the issue of permanence. I’ve argued for some years that the thing that made everyone most nervous about the new insular possessions at the end of the nineteenth century was the idea that the US would be stuck with them forever. You have to remember that the Civil War was still very fresh in people’s minds in that period. And what was the issue there? It was Lincoln’s central claim that hecould not accept the secession of the southern states—not even if he wanted to. He asserted that the Constitution did not permit a withdrawal of a part of the union. This was a situation where constitutional interpretation was performed in blood. I believe that the United States’ imperial exuberance was haunted by this issue: What would happen if, later, there was a need to alienate these places—to get rid of them? Would this trigger a constitutional crisis? At its heart, the distinction between incorporated and unincorporated territories was a distinction between permanence and fungibility. The insular cases in effect smuggled a theory of secession into American law.

So do you foresee a civil war breaking out over Palmyra?

I think we’re in the clear there. My impression is that the Nature Conservancy is basically running the place these days. Very friendly people, I am sure. But I do think that, absurd as it may sound, there is a perfectly credible constitutional argument that, in view of Palmyra’s “incorporation,” the place forms an integral part of this indestructible union, and that, say, if the US wanted to cede it to Kiribati, there would need to be a constitutional amendment.

Can you explain how Palmyra ended up in this weird position?

It was originally claimed as a guano island, under the 1856 act. Then it turns out there is no guano, so it’s abandoned. Eventually the Kingdom of Hawaii takes it, then we take Hawaii. Hawaii is deemed to have been formally “incorporated” into the United States circa 1900, and set on the road to statehood, but when statehood actually happens, the Palmyra chain isn’t on the map. I’m not really clear on why, but the archipelago of Palmyra ends up an orphan in legal terms.

But if it was incorporated, then is it now on its way to statehood?

That’s what I’m pulling for. You and I can be the senators. I mean, in some sense you are pointing to a kind of reductio ad absurdum of legal boundary drawing, which is fair enough, and, indeed, what I take to be striking about the Palmyra story is exactly the way it exemplifies the role of legal boundary drawing in the history of imperialism. Empires work by extending power and people, configuring concentric spheres of protection and influence—all of this is about sliding boundaries. Palmyra sits out there in the Pacific sun as a monument to all the boundary tweaking that has gone on at the periphery of an expansive American experiment.

Let’s fast-forward for a moment. I know that the Supreme Court has cited your work on the Insular Cases in connection with recent litigation on Guantánamo. Can you talk for a moment about this island outpost and its liminal legal status?

Well, again, here the issue has been one of legal boundaries. Guantánamo is not a “territory” of the US in any of the senses we have been talking about. It is a strange sort of lease—a perpetual lease, the terms of which specify that the arrangement cannot be altered without the mutual consent of Cuba and the US. This is not the sort of lease that happens absent considerable pressure, and indeed the arrangement—very humiliating and annoying to Cubans—was a precondition of the withdrawal of US occupying forces after the Spanish-American War. The US wanted it as a naval base. This was the era of Alfred Thayer Mahan—The Influence of Sea Power on History (1890). Everybody needed coaling stations all over the world. Control over the oceans was the geostrategic obsession of the great powers. Much of the imperial island craze of the turn of the century is about this. Anyway, it is this odd status—the US is definitely in charge, but the place is, nominally anyway, part of Cuba—that facilitated the creative legal work by the Bush administration lawyers. In essence, they argued that the protections of the US Constitution were irrelevant to what went on there, since the US wasn’t the sovereign.

So who is? Castro?

Basically. That was sort of their argument. Just to be clear, this stuff is also very complicated, because there are all sorts of special legal considerations when you are talking about military bases, and so on. But grossly speaking, you are dealing with another legal no-man’s-land, another island put forward as beyond the constitutional pale. Significantly, of course, the Supreme Court has been chipping away at this posture. The Boumediene case in 2008 marked an important moment, because there the Court rejected the idea that the prisoners being held at Guantánamo were beyond the reach of some of the basic legal protections of the US system.

Maybe the CIA needs to call your James Bond villain friend.

You know, you say that, and I have to admit that when all of this first started going down—reports of secret prisons, extraordinary renditions, etc.—the first thing that occurred to me was that someone should be checking to see what was up on the seven guano islands that the US still holds. They were, in a way, the original law-free zones, and they are still out there. I think one or two might even have an airstrip.

Christina Duffy Burnett is an associate professor of law at Columbia University. She is the co-editor of Foreign in a Domestic Sense: Puerto Rico, American Expansion, and the Constitution (Duke University Press, 2001) and the author of numerous articles and essays on the law, history, and politics of American empire.

Sina Najafi is editor-in-chief of Cabinet.

Cabinet is a non-profit organization. Please consider supporting us bysubscribing to the magazine, buying a limited edition artwork, or making a tax-deductible donation.

Cabinet Magazine Celebrates Ten Years of Publication: Symposium / “Curiosity and Method”

2011-04-02T11:50:00.006+01:00

Symposium / “Curiosity and Method”

Date: Saturday, 9 April 2011, 10 am–6:30 pm
Location: Betts Auditorium, Architecture Building, Princeton University (map and directions)
FREE. No RSVP necessary

With its fortieth issue, released in January of this year, Cabinet celebrated ten years of publication. We are using the occasion as a way of thinking both retrospectively and prospectively about some keywords that have been important to us in framing our project. These themes include amateurism, curiosity, pranks, the ordinary, deception, attention, the ethics of listening, and more. This all-day symposium gathers a diverse group of extraordinary writers and thinkers to help us sift through these keywords and to allow us to ask questions about Cabinet’s successes and failures. The symposium will be followed by a reception during which there will be a number of short readings (five minutes each) from Cabinet’s first decade.

We hope you can join us for all of part of the symposium and for the reception that follows. The full program is as below:

10–11:30
Anthony Grafton on pranks and games
Simon Critchley on fiction and deception
Marina Warner on pleasure

11:45–12:45
Jeff Dolven on the ordinary
Margaret Wertheim on the amateur

1–2
Lunch

2–3:30
Lorraine Daston on attention
Daniel Rosenberg on listening
Leland de la Durantaye on citation and originality

3:45–4:45
Justin E. H. Smith on the politics of curiosity
Barbara M. Benedict on collecting

5–6:30
Reception, followed by readings and performances, at the Chancellor Green Rotunda
Readers include Priscilla Becker, Mary Walling Blackburn, theChadwicks (Lytle Shaw and Jimbo Blachly), Emilie Clark, Shelley Jackson, Alexander Nagel, George Prochnik, and others (list in formation)

Organized by Yara Flores, and sponsored by Princeton University’s Center for Collaborative History, Program in History of Science, School of Architecture, and IHUM

Amelia Earhart's Fate Discovered

2011-04-01T18:49:00.005+01:00

The fate of famous aviator Amelia Earhart may have been discovered on an uninhabited island in Kiribati. Along with her navigator Fred Noonan, she took off from present day Papua New Guinea in 1937, attempting to circumnavigate the globe. During this voyage, she was lost and never seen again. Artifacts dating from the 1930's have now been found on Nikumaroro atoll in the Pacific Ocean. The artifacts include a women's makeup compact, a broken mirror, and severall small bottles made in the U.S., which had melted bottoms suggesting that they had been used for boiling things. Also found were bones appearing to be part of a human finger, but which also could have belonged to a turtle. The bones will be tested for DNA matching Amelia Earhart's. The theory held by researchers at the moment is that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan abandoned their aircraft in the ocean after experiencing difficulties, and lived as castaways on the uninhabited Nikumaroro atoll, on which they eventually perished. If the DNA from the bones matches Amelia Earhart's, then one of the biggest mysteries of all time will be solved!

Source:www.private-islands.blogspot.com

Virtual States. The Internet and the Boundaries of the Nation-State

2011-03-29T21:40:00.002+01:00

2011-03-29T17:44:00.002+01:00

Endicott Island

2011-03-23T09:35:00.003Z

Endicott Island is a 45-acre (0.18 km²) artificial island located in the U.S. state of Alaska, 2.5 miles (4 km) offshore and 15 miles (24 km) from Prudhoe Bay of the Beaufort Sea. Endicott Island was built in 1987 and is used by BP and ExxonMobil for petroleum production.

Endicott Island was the first continuously producing offshore oil field in the Arctic, producing around 20,000 barrels of oil per day. Approximately 423 million barrels had been produced as of March 2003. Processed oil is sent from Endicott Island through a 24-mile pipeline to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, and thence to Valdez, Alaska.^[1]

In 1998 and 1999, illegal waste dumping at Endicott Island resulted in combined fines of US$1,500,000 against BP and Doyon Drilling, with further settlements of $24,000,000. In September 1999, one of BP’s US subsidiaries, BP Exploration Alaska (BPXA), agreed to resolve charges related to the illegal dumping of hazardous wastes on the Alaska North Slope, for $22 million. The settlement included the maximum $500,000 criminal fine, $6.5 million in civil penalties, and BP’s establishment of a $15 million environmental management system at all of BP facilities in the US and Gulf of Mexico that are engaged in oil exploration, drilling or production.

The charges stemmed from the 1993 to 1995 dumping of hazardous wastes on Endicott Island by BP’s contractor Doyon Drilling. The firm illegally discharged waste oil, paint thinner and other toxic and hazardous substances by injecting them down the outer rim, or annuli, of the oil wells. BPXA failed to report the illegal injections when it learned of the conduct, in violation of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act.^[2]

^{Source: Wikipedia}

Nauru island - Flight Simulator

2011-03-22T22:28:00.000Z

Paradise Lost - Nauru

2011-03-22T22:05:00.002Z

Click on the title above to watch a really accurate short documentary

on Nauru's recent history

The Nauru Agreement

2011-03-22T21:56:00.001Z

Nauru Agreement

Nauru Agreement Introduction

The Nauru Agreement is a subregional agreement on terms and conditions for tuna

purse seine fishing licences in the region. The Parties to the Nauru Agreement are

Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau,

Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.

This Agreement has 3 Implementing Arrangements which set out specific rules for

fishing in these countries.

Source: Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency

Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency

2011-03-22T21:42:00.005Z

The Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) strengthens

national capacity and regional solidarity so its 17 members can

manage, control and develop their tuna fisheries now and in the

future. Based in Honiara, Solomon Islands, FFA's 17 Pacific

Island members are: Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States

of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New

Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon

Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

FFA was established to help countries sustainably manage

their fishery resources that fall within their 200 mile Exclusive

Economic Zones (EEZs).

FFA is an advisory body providing expertise, technical assistance

and other support to its members who make sovereign decisions

about their tuna resources and participate in regional decision

making on tuna management through agencies such as the

Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC).

Since 1979, FFA has facilitated regional cooperation so that all

Pacific countries benefit from the sustainable use of tuna –

worth over $3 billion a year and important for many people’s

livelihoods in the Pacific.

Vision Statement

The joint aim of members of the Forum Fisheries Agency

is captured in its Vision Statement, which states:

“We, the Member Countries of the Forum Fisheries Agency,

will enjoy the highest level of economic and social benefits

that is compatible with sustainable use of our tuna resources.”

Pacific escapes Japan tsunami damage

2011-03-22T21:23:00.007Z

Updated Sat Mar 12, 2011 11:38am AEDT

Reports from many parts of the Pacific say the tsunami expected in the wake of Japan's earthquake has not eventuated.

The tsunami generated by the quake rolled across the Pacific at 800 kilometres an hour, as fast as a jetliner, hitting the US west coast this morning.

Thousands fled their homes along the California coast, but only two towns in northern California suffered any significant damage to boats and harbour areas.

The US Coast Guard is searching for one man swept out to sea after he and two friends went down to the coastline to photograph incoming tsunami waves.

A series of four tsunami waves hit the Hawaiian island of Oahu, but no injuries or property damage were reported.

Many residents in Tonga fled to higher ground ahead of the expected 5:00am arrival of the wave, however Radio Tonga journalists say the waters have remained calm.

In Papua New Guinea, authorities say there has been no sign of a tsunami, nor has Marshall Islands been affected.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre reports waves of between 20 to 70 centimetres were expected on islands such as Nauru, Kiribati's Tarawa, Fiji and Vanuatu.

The alert has since been lifted in most parts, including the Philippines, Australia and China, however New Zealand has upgraded its tsunami warning this morning.

Several Latin American countries are also preparing for the coming wave.

Ecuador has declared a state of emergency and urged residents to move inland.

In Chile, where an earthquake and tsunami killed 500 people a year ago, officials have ordered the evacuation of coastal areas.

Peruvian officials say they are waiting until late afternoon local time to decide if they will order evacuations from low-lying areas.

Many ports along Mexico's western coast have been closed and officials say high waves hit the coast but there were no reports of damage and the worst is now over.

Source: ABC News Australia

Nauruan Matt Alaeddine sets the world record for the Fattest Contorsionist

2011-03-01T12:00:00.004Z

Source:

www.worldrecordsacademy.org

Flagler Island: An Artificial Island As Monument

2011-02-24T15:18:00.004Z

The Flagler Memorial Island is an artificial island that was built in 1920 along with the other Venetian Islands of Miami and Miami Beach, Florida, complete with a monument visible from the Flamingo Hotel in Miami Beach. A 110-foot (34 m) high obelisk with allegorical sculptures at its base stands as a monument to Miami pioneer Henry M. Flagler, and was built in the center of the freshly-constructed island in memory of Flagler, who died in 1913.

Unlike the other Venetian Islands, the perfectly rounded shape of the memorial island was not protected by a sea wall. The powerful tidal flow from Government Cut, as well as hurricanes and other forces, have drastically altered its original shape. Exotic species such as Burma reed (Neyraudia reynaudiana), seaside-mahoe (Thespesia populnea) and beach naupaka (Scaevola taccada) have covered much of the island. In 1994 the Biscayne Bay Environmental Enhancement Trust Fund and the Florida Inland Navigation District used a $220,000 bond to build a clearing in the center of the island near the monument, where visitors play volleyball and light bonfires. The project also stabilized the shoreline with the installation of lime rock boulders, and created sand beaches and dunes for boaters to enjoy. Hurricane Wilma eroded away much of the beaches in the fall of 2005, leaving many of the picnic tables partially submerged.

Miami-Dade County maintains the island, including modest picnic facilities and trash cans, and is considering issuing a $250,000 bond to correct the monument's serious disrepair due to its exposure to harsh marine elements, vandalism and years of deferred maintenance.

Although the island is unpopulated, it is considered a neighborhood in the City of Miami Beach.

Source:Wikipedia

Bahrain Business Bay Master Plan and Four Seasons Hotel, Manama, Bahrain

2011-02-13T20:04:00.010Z

Bahrain Business Bay Master Plan and Four Seasons Hotel,

Manama, Bahrain Schematic design to construction of $2.5 billion, 2 million cubic square meter reclaimed artificial island development for 25,000 residents, including design of Four Seasons tower with Skidmore Owings and Merrill, LLP, New York

http://www.bahrainbay.com

Designer: Annie Kwon:

http://www.kwonix.com/

The Clipperton Project

2011-02-13T19:44:00.004Z

Media Release
February 2011

The Clipperton Project
7 international artists, 7 international scientists, 1 expedition to an
astonishing, abandoned island in the Pacific with a strange history and unique biosphere.

Situated around 800 miles west of Acapulco, Clipperton (or as the French style it, Ile de la Passion) is an abandoned island with a strange history, a unique biosphere and an obscure lagoon filled with ancient marine life. Later this year an expedition of 7 international artists and 7 international scientists will set sail from the West coast of Mexico on a 3-week expedition to the island. The participants will produce work based on the history of the atoll (specifically Mexico’s “damned” colony of 1917) and its ecological, geological and human history in order to create a cross-cultural portrayal of this unique place. The work produced will then be shown at scientific and cultural institutions across Europe and the Americas, including Glasgow Sculpture Studios (Glasgow, Scotland), Universum (Mexico City, Mexico) and Institute of the Americas (London, England).

Unveiling details of the project at Glasgow Sculpture Studios, Expedition Leader, Jonathan Bonfiglio, said:

“I’d heard about this strange island of Clipperton a few years ago and it soon became clear that it could offer a very interesting jumping off point for discussing many different topics of importance to contemporary society.”

“The idea of an international arts science expedition came about as offering a way to explore areas such as global warming and environmental issues through cross cultural dialogue. By linking these two broad areas of endeavour it would bring something new to the fore and hopefully reach new audiences.”

“There are so many aspects of Clipperton that are fascinating for me as an artist from its strange history to its unique biology,” says British sculptor, Charles Engebretsen, who is one of only seven international artists to be taking part in the expedition. “I have collaborated with many artists in different environments, but not had close interactions with scientists before,” he adds. “The opportunity to work with the oceanographers, biologists and medical scientists will inform my practice, and the chance to display the work we make in scientific establishments as well as art galleries is particularly exciting as it will hopefully break down the perceived barriers between art and science.”

“We are thrilled to be a partner in the Clipperton Project which will see the artists and scientists not only bring their unique perspectives to issues of importance to contemporary society, but enable some fruitful dialogues to be set up between the two fields,” says Amy Sales, Programme Development Manager at Glasgow Sculpture Studios. “We know that many of the participants already have some ideas about the topics of interest for their research, but we are sure other exciting things will emerge once the group arrives at the island which will lead to an important body of research and intriguing artworks to be shown across Europe and the Americas in 2012. “

The 7 artists taking part in the expedition are expedition leader, writer Jonathan Bonfiglio; Mexican photographer Naim “El Libanes” Rahal Manzanilla; Norwegian Dancer/choreographer, Mia Habib; British filmmaker, John Dickie; British designer/visual artist Nicola Dobrowolski; Mexican Writer, Jimena Gorráez Belmar and British Sculptor, Charles Engebretsen. The scientists taking part in the expedition are experts in the fields of Environmental Geoscience, Oceanography, Biomedicine Hydrogeology, Biology, Medical Investigation, Industrial Engineering, Molecular Biology and Genomics.

Further information on the Clipperton Project can be found at:
www.clippertonproject.com

ENDS

Notes for Editors

Clipperton (Ile de la Passion)

History

The island of Clipperton has had an incredible history, from rumours of hidden treasure left by the British pirate John Clipperton, to the struggles between Mexico and France over its ownership (including the horrific and tragic events there in 1917) in the early twentieth century to the little known fact that President Roosevelt visited there twice during the Second World War with a view to establishing it as a military base for the United States. Today Clipperton is a French territory and provides us with one of the most isolated ecosystems in the world, one which might reveal not only the extent of current climate change through study of its coral reefs but also a place in which a consistently invaded body of water in the lagoon somehow remains drinkable, a factor of major interest to participating scientists.

The Island

Apart from the forgotten Mexican colony that inhabited the island at the start of the last century, Clipperton has seen very few humans in its history, and even the small number who have recently visited have failed to provide wholly accurate documentation of what the island holds. Some accounts talk of the substantial problem provided by rats – now the apex predator on the island - left over from sinking ships; others describe the coral reefs around the atoll as making access to the island almost impossible; still others disagree about how long it takes to walk around the entire island (accounts vary from 2 to 7 hours).

All in all, this means that it is very difficult to know what will be found on arrival at the island, although little shelter and plenty of poisonous orange crabs are a certainty. Clipperton Island may look like paradise from a distance, but close up it is a unique hybrid of an ecosystem in which odd creatures have somehow managed to survive alone at the ends of the earth.

At an average height of 3 metres above sea level, with rising sea levels Clipperton Atoll will soon no longer exist. This is not just an island which will disappear forever, but all manner of highly evolved and unique bacteria, fungi and algae from the lagoon, and along with them all the genetic make-up which has allowed them to survive in such a hostile environment. It is estimated that only 10% of species on earth have been genetically documented, and species that inhabit the outer, more extreme reaches of the planet are more genetically unique than those found in the more common usual environments. This means that they must be studied now before that genetic information – a genetic information which harbours the strongest survival instincts and abilities at its core – is lost forever.

With the relatively new field of metagenomics, preservation of the genetic material allows the identification of biodiversity of microscopic species and of bioprospecting (which refers to the finding of new genes, enzymes and proteins). This is a field of massive growth and interest for universities, organisations and drug companies focusing on medical investigations, as these are currently leading to previously unthought breakthroughs in biotechnological and medical science.

The Coral Reefs

The oceans – the lungs of the earth - are becoming increasingly acidic, meaning that organisms within these vast fields of life are finding it harder and harder to reproduce and regenerate, thus radically altering what used to be a perfectly balanced ecosystem. The coral reefs around Clipperton were once pristine, and even though reports suggest that they have suffered from man’s influence – even here on one of the most isolated islands on earth – studies undertaken even in a few days will reveal how their capacity to regenerate has been affected by reduced ocean salinity.

The Lagoon

Despite regular saltwater incursions, Clipperton’s lagoon somehow remains freshwater and drinkable, and is therefore one of the most important centres of investigation for the Clipperton Project, which will be collecting samples from all areas and depths in the lagoon, with these being refrigerated and delivered to the Institutes of Biotechnology and Genomic Science at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the University of Morelos, where the samples will be isolated, catalogued and studied.

Lesley Booth
New Century PR
Tel: +44 (0)141 649 9621/+ 44 (0)20 8677 6741
Mobile: +44 (0)779 941 4474

Recent/Current projects include:
Bard in the Botanics Festival; British Art Show 7 (Glasgow); Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland; Cultural Enterprise Office; Deveron Arts; Edinburgh Art Festival, Finefunds; Glasgow Sculpture Studios; Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich; Scottish Flute Trio; Scottish Youth Theatre; sound Festival of New Music; Stavanger - Cultural Capital of Europe; Vanishing Point Theatre Company; Y-dance.

Source: Oliver Basciano

CNN Reporter Johnny Colt Visits Nauru: Little Island of Big Stories

2011-02-13T19:32:00.003Z

Please join me in a series of iReports about a place that I hope you will find as fascinating as I do.
Let me introduce you to the island nation of Nauru, the world’s smallest independent sovereign Republic. When I say this raised, fossilized atoll is small, I mean small. This country boasts a population of roughly 10,500 people. Maximum. The manager of the country’s one television channel (NTV – Nauru Television) claims that most people in Nauru know everyone on the island. To get a real feel for how small Nauru is, let’s look at it this way: Nauru’s landmass is 21 square kilometers in total. If you drive at the island’s top speed of 25 mph, you can circle the island in about 20 minutes. When they say Nauru is remote, it is hours by plane to the next landmass of any real size. It took me two full days and four planes to reach Nauru from Atlanta.
If the world were flat, the last stop before you fell off would be Nauru. Equal parts Pacific beauty, gritty industrial complex, native people in no hurry and Ian Fleming-style mystery all add up to create a story you just couldn’t make up. The cast of characters I met on this remote island are the stuff of timeless novels.
Nauru is infamous on the world stage. The country has been at the center of much controversy. Offshore banking scandals; supposedly, the world’s highest obesity rates per capita; the site of a controversial detention center for Australia’s unwanted asylum-seekers and let’s not forget the U.S.-led Operation Weasel. Operation Weasel, you ask? That operation was a program where the U.S. Government paid Nauru to use the Nauruan Embassy in North Korea to help smuggle out defecting North Korean scientists. Does that come with one of those James Bond gadgets, like a fountain pen that shoots lethal darts?
Nauru, however, is best known for phosphate. After World War I, Britain, Australia and New Zealand administered Nauru. For six decades, Nauru’s foreign administers strip-mined the island–taking the phosphate and leaving two-thirds of the island uninhabitable. Found guilty for devastating the land through inappropriate mining, Nauru’s administrators had to turn over the keys to the phosphate ATM as well as give Nauru its independence in 1968. The Nauruans continued to mine the island as their predecessors had done. The phosphate boom continued and briefly made the islanders the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The phosphate mining eventually slowed down. According to Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, phosphate production went from 1.67 million tons in the late 1980‘s to having ceased, altogether, by 2003. Phosphate production is currently up and running, again, as I would soon see for myself. But, I am getting ahead of the story. Out of control spending, bad investments and outright theft left Nauru destitute. Nauru fought to have it all, only to lose everything they earned in one generation. It is a remarkable story of excess, corruption, international manipulation and a community of natives coming of age. An island gold rush for a mineral principally used as fertilizer. In all my research about Nauru, I only found two quotes from actual Nauruans (that were not politicians.) Why do we hear so little in these reports from the everyday Nauruans? So much has been said about this notorious country–most of it negative. Some of that press is so negative that it feels a little like journalistic bullies picking on a school kid of a story. Information about Nauru is difficult to get. From a statistics standpoint, small populations can be tricky to track correctly. Because of these issues, reporting on Nauru is suspect to questionable sourcing. The basic theme of most reporting on Nauru is as follows: The island, after using up its resources and income, is now a hard luck case living on government handouts. Australia will spend 26.6 million dollars worth of aid to Nauru in 2010-2011. Sounds hard luck to me. I can not help thinking that, on the other hand, had the country’s original Aussie administrators rehabbed the land as they mined it in the first place, maybe they wouldn’t be writing all these checks, today.
While researching Nauru’s crazy history, I found something that–for me–painted a very different picture of the islanders’ character than I was being told in my “off the record phone calls” with Australian officials. During World War II, the Japanese occupied Nauru. It is well documented how brutal the Japanese military were to the islands of the Pacific. Nauru was no exception. The Japanese deported many Nauruans to work as slave labor in the Chuuk Islands. The ones who survived life under the Japanese on the Chuuk Islands were repatriated back to Nauru after the war’s end. The Nauruans had narrowly escaped the destruction of their culture at the hands of the occupying force. This historical event is celebrated by Nauru on the 26th of October and is known as Angam Day or “homecoming.” It’s clear that Nauru and its people have massive challenges ahead of them. Whether it is the environmental issues left by the dirty business of mining, the economic crisis of Nauru’s massive debt structure or the fact that Nauru’s location gives the island a front row seat for the impact of global warming, this country is a frontrunner for the problems that all nations are facing. Limited natural resources, consumption and overspending combined with global warming are the legacy being left for future generations all over the globe. If the people of Nauru had the character and sheer strength of will to survive the Japanese occupation, then there may be a good chance that they can handle the trifecta of doom staring down the barrel at these people. Any way you slice it, Nauru is a long shot. But, then again, I am always a sucker for a Cinderella story.
I called my bookie and, against his advice, placed my bet on Nauru. I am boarding a plane for this faraway nation–this 30-to-1 long shot, this butt-of-the-Pacific joke–to find out just what the Hell is going on halfway around the world.
Johnny Colt
© Johnny Colt. All Rights Reserved

Watch Johnny Colt's Video Reports while in Nauru from CNN iReport:

2011-02-13T19:29:00.001Z

NAURU: trains, planes and more planes – episode 1 | JOHNNY COLT

2011-02-13T19:26:00.000Z

NAURU: trains, planes and more planes – episode 1 | JOHNNY COLT

NAURU: Phosphate and bombs – episode 2 | JOHNNY COLT

2011-02-13T19:25:00.001Z

NAURU: Phosphate and bombs – episode 2 | JOHNNY COLT

NAURU: A day at the track – episode 3 | JOHNNY COLT

2011-02-13T19:25:00.000Z

NAURU: A day at the track – episode 3 | JOHNNY COLT

The Vanuatu Pacifica Foundation & Tanna Centre for the Arts

2011-01-16T17:08:00.015Z

For centuries, the Naihné People of Tanna have lived on this island in Vanuatu's southern-most province, Tafea. In late 2009, their leadership invited Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky) to form an artists retreat within their remote eastern territory. In early 2011, Vanuatu Pacifica Foundation will begin building Tanna Center for the Arts in this beautiful and isolated part of the island. The artists retreat will function as a carbon negative, culturally supportive demonstration model, incorporating a digital media lab and island-restorative education center to aid the goals expressed by the people of this tropical paradise.

The New Economics Foundation inaugural Happy Planet Index of 2006 studied 178 nations and determined the inhabitants of Vanuatu's archipelago to be the "Happiest People on Earth." Yet, the Tannese's daily confrontation with contemporary changes in cultural, economic and climate stability threaten the traditions of village life. Such changes have fueled investigation of modern society and culture. Through Art, we hope to engage this curiosity born of necessity on Tanna and meet it with our own desire to know and value their way of life.

Want to Help Develop a Culture and Climate-Sensitive Project?

The Tanna Center for the Arts proposes to foster an equal exchange of ideas and activities between the cultures of Oceania and the international arts community while working to rebuild a local living economy that retains youth and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK).

In support and service to the local communities, we are designing plans to generate our own energy, through renewable resources, grow our own food, process wastes, collect water and offer education in both high and low tech solutions that work in accord with local culture and geography.

Our goals include:

Engaging art to build dialogue between communities on the island and the international art world.
Sharing expertise around digital & renewable technologies that sustain island ecology, economy and culture.
Using Contemporary Art as a context in which participants sample, remix and reconstruct a balanced society, blending 21 Century technology with the islanders’ Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK).
Giving visiting artists and thinkers the ideal environment in which to create & further their work.

Founder's Statement

In 2009 I spent about 8 weeks in the South Pacific and I really fell in love with the region. So much that I decided to accept an offer to develop several acres of land facing the beach on Tanna in the island nation of Vanuatu.

Oceania is a huge area of the South Pacific that contains myriad cultures which predate most of the civilizations of the rest of the world. It's region is a quilt of radically different cultures and ethnicities. And that's what drew me.

One afternoon I met one of the region's respected figures, Isso Kapum, and his father, Jack Kapum, who is Chief of the Naihné on Tanna. They invited me to become a 'Tanna-Man.' I ended up hanging out with several local i.e. 'tribal' groups on the island and was really blown away by their warmth, friendliness and wisdom. The Ni-Vanuatans have consistently been described as the "happiest people on Earth." If you come check out their islands, you can see why.

I felt that a lot of people in Asia, Africa, South America, the US and Europe never get a chance to see something like the beauty of Vanuatu, so I decided to open up a retreat on part of the property. I hope you can join us as we begin to set up this project, and watch it evolve from an idea to a fully functional, high tech artist retreat and center for the arts in one of the most beautiful parts of the South Pacific.

Help us set this artist retreat up!

In peace,
Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky, NY 2010

Board of Advisors

DAVID ADJAYE, DAVID BUCKLAND, MAJORA CARTER, CATHERINE CORMAN, CORY DOCTOROW, LAURA DAWN, SHEPARD FAIREY, LIAM GILLICK, KEN GOLDBERG, SHAUN GLADWELL, CLAUDE GRUNITZSKY, FRITZ HAEG, ALI HOSSAINI, MIE IWATSUKI, VIJAY IYER, MITCHELL JOACHIM, JOHN S. JOHNSON, BILL JONES, ISSO KAPUM, BILL MOGGRIDGE, JULIE MEHRETU, SUKETU MEHTA, JOSEPH V. MELILLO, MEREDITH MONK, YOKO ONO, DANIEL PINCHBECK, NATALIA RADYUSHKIN, RYUICHI SAKAMOTO, TANYA SELVARATNAM, ONG KENG SEN, TIFFANY SHLAIN, SUSAN SHORT, SHINIQUE SMITH, BRUCE STERLING, JIMMY WALES, LUCY WALKER, SAUL WILLIAMS

'The Departing Island' by Iain Crichton Smith

2011-01-16T08:40:00.010Z

It is the island that goes away, not we who leave it.
Like an unbearable thought it sinks beyond
assiduous reasoning light and wringing hands,
or, as a flower roots deep into the ground,
it works its darkness into the gay winds
that blow about us in a later spirit.

Part 3 from A Life:

Our landmark is the island, complex thing.
A rock, a death, a house in which were made
our narrow global seaward-going wings,
the rings of blue, the cloth both fine and frayed.
It sails within us, as one poet said,
its empty shelves are resonant. A scant
religion drives us to our vague tremens.

We drag it at our heels, as iron chains.
A winsome boyhood among glens and bens
casts, later, double images and shades.
And ceilidhs in the cities are the lens
through which we see ourselves, unmade, remade,
by music and by grief. The island sails
within us and around us. Startled we
see it in Glasgow, hulk of the humming dead,
and of the girls in cornfields disarrayed.

both from New Collected Poems by Iain Crichton Smith, published this month by Carcanet.

cover image: Marion MacPhee, Sound of Shiant (monotype, 2002).

The Nauru Elegies by DJ Spooky & Annie K. Kwon

2011-01-14T14:15:00.017Z

SUBLIMINAL KID PRODUCTIONS
The Nauru Elegies:
The Idea of an Island

DJ Spooky has teamed up with Annie K Kwon as part of the big media art biennial (Experimenta) 2009 to bring you a multimedia portrait of the island of Nauru, entitled ‘The Nauru Elegies: A Portrait in Sound and Hypsographic Architecture. The musical component of the Nauru Elegies "reflects colonial and postcolonial issues facing the digital economy of the 21st century translated into a string quartet, composed by Paul D. Miller/DJ Spooky," while the architectural component conceptualized by Annie K. Kwon "spatializes and formalizes otherwise invisible economic flows and irreversible ecological devastation."

'As Man stands to Nature, so stands Art to Man.’
Richard Wagner, Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft (The Artwork of the Future) 1849

Project Description: The Republic of Nauru is a small island in the South Pacific Ocean. It is the world's smallest independent state and, at its core, represents a place at the most remote extreme of the planet. Its seemingly utopic geography and landscape stages a dystopic economy and society. It was, by consensus of several “Great Powers”, used as a raw resource until there was literally, nothing left. Nauru has been mined throughout the last two centuries for its phosphate deposits, which occupied 90% of the island. In the 1980s, phosphate exports briefly gave Nauruans one of the highest per capita incomes in the Third World. It is anticipated that the phosphate reserves will be completely exhausted before 2050. Despite this, the unemployment rate currently stands at 90%.

As a small territory with no exploitable resources, in the 1990’s Nauru turned to off-shore financing, and the creation of “virtual banks” as a way of earning sorely needed foreign currency. As such, it mirrors the off-shore island economies of The Cayman Islands, and continental havens like Luxembourg and Switzerland. As the Soviet Union collapsed, hundreds of billions of dollars “vanished” through the digital networks of the global financial system through places like Nauru, to re-appear in banks all over the world as “clean money.” For further information, view Jack Hitt’s December 10, 2000 article in the New York Times “The Billion-Dollar Shack”

The Nauru Elegies project looks at the combination of unique qualities that make a remote place like Nauru a core member of the 21st century global economy: It explores an island in a state of environmental collapse caused by deep seated financial irregularities, and how they affected the landmass of the island to the point of devastation. The Nauru Elegies posits that Nauru is a reflection site of many of the issues facing our contemporary information economy. The music component of the Nauru Elegies reflects colonial and postcolonial issues facing the digital economy of the 21st century translated into a string quartet, composed by Paul D. Miller/DJ Spooky, while the literary and multimedia component of the project spatializes and formalizes otherwise invisible economic flows and irreversible ecological devastation. Based on Miller’s explorations of the island, and his readings of texts like the economist Raj Patel’s economic treatise “The Value of Nothing,” Jared Diamond’s “Collapse,” Aldous Huxley’s last novel “Island,” Michel Houellebecq’s novel “The Possibility of an Island” (La Possibilité d'une île, 2005), Paul Virilio’s “The Aesthetics of Disappearance” and other historical texts, Miller has fashioned an “acoustic portrait” of the island. At heart, the Nauru Elegies is an art installation that explores the linkages between music composition, information structures based on economics, and new forms of GPS based locational media (architecture and design are also components) in collision with local infrastructure of an island in radical environmental collapse. The “Nauru Elegies” explores the uneasy tension between local versus global financial markets, and how they translate into aesthetics. In the “Nauru Elegies” a new digital media architecture reclaims an “autonomous zone” in the hyper-networked systems of global finance that contemporary life calls home.

Tax and data havens are black holes in the global financial system, and Nauru represented a place where a vast amount of finance “disappeared” into the mega-structures of the global financial markets. Nauru Elegies represents a virtual territory at a culmination of global currents, and creates music compositions that reflect that kind of virtuality.

The poet Goethe and the philosopher Schelling both once wrote: “architecture is nothing but frozen music.” The Nauru Elegies asks what happens if we reverse engineer that process through on-site recordings and footage translated through the prism of music and architectural form? The end result is an installation and music composition that blur the lines between what an artist creates and how a composer engages the 21st century’s information economy.

Technical write-up: 'The Nauru Elegies' is a technical synthesis of a live string ensemble, projected high-definition video footage, digital animation and live internet feed of GPS coordinates of specific aspects of the island and its physical and financial infrastructure. It is an orchestration of content retrieved and processed in multiple localities including research in New York City and documentation in Nauru. The “Elegies” are a statement of technology and media processes in the 21st century that is exponentially progressing to a more dematerialized and delocalized state.

www.djspooky.com/nauruelegies

Nick Mangan, Nauru, Notes from a Cretaceous World

2011-01-14T13:23:00.009Z

Nauru, notes from a cretaceous world, 2010

Ink on paper
87 x 65cm

Nauru, notes from a cretaceous world, 2010

Installation

Dowiyogo's ancient coffee coral table, 2010

Coral lime stone
46 x 140 x 85cm

Dowiyogo's ancient coffee coral table, 2010

(detail)

29 July 2010 - 28 August 2010, Sutton Gallery, Australia

Nick Mangan, Nauru, Notes from a Cretaceous World

Nauru, Notes from a Cretaceous World, follows Nick Mangan's second expedition to Nauru and digs deeper into the phosphate nation, surfacing relics of a redundant industry and examining the barren surreal landscape. Mixing sculpture, found objects, documentary style video footage, and more stylized filmic elements, this body of work reflects on the complex socio-political history of the small Pacific island of Nauru, a once lush and self-sustainable atoll which has plunged into financial and environmental destitution over the past two decades.

Mangan has taken on a curious proposal put forward by Bernhard Dowiyogo, the late Nauruan president, to rescue the nation's economy by turning the island's mined rock pinnacles into coral coffee tables, as a cue for the project. Nauruan rock, embodies the evolution of excrement to phosphate rich coral to its current barren form. Mangan's conscious re-staging of this exploitative appropriation in a contemporary context pinpoints a shift in Nauru's value as a source of mineral rich phosphate, to a potential site of authenticity. With their porous surfaces and curved edge, the materiality of Mangan's coffee tables does not only reference the social, financial and cultural turmoil endured, but physically mimics the contoured coastline of this petite island nation and its eroded, broken landscape.

With a focused depiction of Nauru, the main video projection immerses the viewer in eerily desolate scenes of surreal mined out pinnacles, a colourless coastline and relics of the redundant mining industry juxtaposed with images of Melbourne's Nauru House taken during the preceding height of national affluence. This projection is a poignant testament to the artist's personal expedition to the site and his physical presence is apparent in both his considered choice of footage and more directly in the introductory voice over.

An indirect, though timely reference to ‘the Pacific Solution' and the implication of Nauru's compliance predicated on its desperate financial situation, serves to highlight some of the major social inequalities that operate in the current world order. These themes of distance, transit and cultural exchange that underlie Mangan's personal exploration of Nauru, parallel broader concerns about the dynamics of the contemporary global political economy.

Following his studio residency at Gertrude Street Contemporary Art Spaces Nick Mangan has held numerous solo exhibitions at Sutton Gallery, Melbourne. Mangan, has also frequently been curated into significant group exhibitions including in 2004; Australian Culture Now, a collaboration between the National Gallery of Victoria and Australian Centre of the Moving Image, Melbourne; Primavera at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney in 2004; Adventures with form in space: the fourth Balnaves Foundation Sculpture Project at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney in 2006 and Uncanny Nature at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2006. Mangan was the recipient of an Anne and Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarships in 2007. He completed post graduate studies at UDK in Berlin as part of this scholarship. Mangan created a major site specific work, A1 Southwest Stone, for the seventh SITE Santa Fe International Biennial in 2008. In 2009 he exhibited Between a Rock and a Hard Place at the Art Gallery of New South Wales Contemporary Project Space Level 2 and earlier in 2010 Mangan presented, The Nauru Project, as part of the Adelaide Biennale of Art, at the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.

President Marcus Stephen of Nauru meets the Obamas at the Metropolitan Museum New York along with other world leaders

2011-01-14T12:35:00.008Z

Marcus Stephen, M.P. President of the Republic of Nauru

Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Emir of the State of Qatar, and H.H. Sheikha Mozah

Paul Biya, President of the Republic of Cameroon, and his wife, Mrs. Chantal Biya

Alhaji Dr. Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh, President of the Republic of The Gambia

Prince Mohamed Bolkiah, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Brunei Darussalam, and H.R.H. Pengiran Anak Isteri Pengiran Anak Hajah Zariah

Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi, President of the Union of the Comoros, and his wife, Mrs. Djoudi Hadjir

T.H. Milo Djukanovic Prime Minister of Montenegro, and his wife, Mrs. Djukanovic

Minister of Foreign Affairs King-Akerele of the Republic of Liberia

Madhav Kumar Nepal, Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, and Mrs. Nepal

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey, and his wife, Mrs. Erdogan

And the Spanish president's goth daughters

An Open Letter to President Stephen of Nauru

2011-01-14T12:20:00.006Z

TUVALU: Tiny Pacific state in crisis

2011-01-14T09:25:00.005Z

By MICHAEL FIELD for stuff.co.nz
LATEST: A tiny South Pacific nation, Tuvalu, has resorted to emergency rule and its leadership under armed guard, sources on the capital atoll of Funafuti say. The third smallest state on earth - after the Vatican and Nauru - has a population of just 10,400. Sources say the country's solitary navy boat, Te Mataila, is now guarding the shoreline of the side-by-side residences of the Governor General Iakoba Itaeli and Prime Minister Willy Telavi. A state of emergency has been declared and any gathering of 10 or more people prohibited. There has been a march on Funafuti but so far there has been no violence, the source says.
Tensions are high however as people from the Nukufetau island community have demanded one of their members of parliament, Lotoala Metia, resign. There has been a continuing power struggle in the 15 seat Parliament. Last year, a large part of the New Zealand Defence Forces took part in a major exercise on Funafuti, designed to prepare the nation for tsunamis and other civil disasters. The island nation is 1100km north of Fiji and has drawn the attention of environmentalists who fear it will disappear due to global warming. Tuvalu makes much of its money from fishing and the sale of its internet domain suffix, dot TV.
Source:
© 2010 Fairfax New Zealand Limited

Country Profile BBC:

TUVALU
Tuvalu is a group of nine tiny islands in the South Pacific which won independence from the United Kingdom in 1978. Five of the islands are coral atolls, the other four consist of land rising from the sea bed.
All are low-lying, with no point on Tuvalu being higher than 4.5 metres above sea level. Local politicians have campaigned against global warming, arguing that climate change could see the islands swamped by rising sea levels.
OVERVIEW
Life on the islands is simple and often harsh. There are no streams or rivers, so the collection of rain is essential.
Coconut palms cover most of the islands, and copra - dried coconut kernel - is practically the only export commodity. Increasing salination of the soil threatens traditional subsistence farming.
Tuvalu depends on foreign aid, the income from the sale of tuna fishing licences and the interest from a trust fund set up in 1987. The sale of postage stamps also brings in revenues.
It is one of a handful of countries to have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, which has funded the construction of Tuvalu's largest building - a three-storey administrative headquarters.
Tuvalu has shown ingenuity by exploiting another source of income. It has sold its internet suffix - .tv - to a Californian company for several million dollars a year in continuing revenue. The company sells the suffix on to television broadcasters.
Some of the money has been used to pave roads - which were formerly made of crushed coral - and to build schools.
FACTS
Full name: Tuvalu
Population: 11,000 (UN, 2010)
Capital: Funafuti
Area: 26 sq km (10 sq miles)
Major language: Tuvaluan, English
Major religion: Christianity
Life expectancy: 62 years (men), 65 years (women) (UN)
Monetary unit: 1 Tuvaluan dollar, or 1 Australian dollar = 100 cents
Main exports: Copra, handicrafts
GNI per capita: Estimated to be lower middle income: $996 to $3,945 (World Bank, 2009)
Internet domain: .tv
International dialling code: +688

Nauru College PV System

2011-01-13T22:03:00.008Z

First Island Seen by Christopher Columbus For Sale

2011-01-13T13:19:00.002Z

High Cay, Bahamas was the first land that Christopher Columbus spotted on his famous journey when he discovered the new world. Just imagine, crossing the ocean for months not knowing if you will ever see land again... and then all of a sudden, this beatiful island is spotted! Amazingly, this 31.46 acre island is on sale! Listed at $3,000,000 U.S., the island boasts 3 different beaches, and although it doesn't have a dock at the moment, there is an ideal sheltered spot to build one. The Bahamas is a great place to purchase an island, because of its stable government, balmy weather and close proximity to the U.S. Although this island has a lot going for it, the history of the island is what makes it really attractive.

Source: http://private-islands.blogspot.com/

Wirtland to grant citizenship to Julian Assange

2011-01-09T19:08:00.002Z

Dec 28, 2010
Wirtland citizenship for Julian Assange

Government of Wirtland decided to grant Wirtland citizenship to Julian Assange. The official letter from the world's first sovereign cybercountry underlines Mr. Assange's "great accomplishments in changing the public perception of internet and its role in the world's balance of power". Official residence permit was issued in the name of Julian Assange.

"Your example has vividly demonstrated how quickly and efficiently the internet can influence real life. While citizenship of a cybercountry may seem merely symbolic today, you know better than anybody else the potential of cyberspace and the role of web social projects in the near future. Wirtland offers our citizenship to show our support to your case, and our appreciation of your achievements," - states the Wirtland's letter to Mr. Assange.

Mr. Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, is currently under house arrest in England pending an extradition hearing. For his work with WikiLeaks, Assange received a number of awards and nominations, including the 2009 Amnesty International Media Award and Readers' Choice for Time magazine's 2010 Person of the Year.

Source: http://wirtland.blogspot.com/2010/12/wirtland-citizenship-for-julian-assange.html

With kind regards,

Cristopher Luengo

PR Attache

Foreign Office

Government of Wirtland

WIRTLAND

www.Wirtland.com | www.Wirtland.net | http://Wirtland.blogspot.com | www.Wirtland.org

Book: The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares

2011-01-09T19:00:00.004Z

The Invention of Morel
Adolfo Bioy Casares, introduction by Suzanne Jill Levine, prologue by Jorge Luis Borges, translated from the Spanish by Ruth L.C. Simms.
Jorge Luis Borges declared The Invention of Morel a masterpiece of plotting, comparable to The Turn of The Screw and Journey to the Center of the Earth. Set on a mysterious island, Bioy’s novella is a story of suspense and exploration, as well as a wonderfully unlikely romance, in which every detail is at once crystal clear and deeply mysterious. Inspired by Bioy Casares’s fascination with the movie star Louise Brooks, The Invention of Morel has gone on to live a secret life of its own. Greatly admired by Julio Cortázar, Gabriel García Márquez, and Octavio Paz, the novella helped to usher in Latin American fiction’s now famous postwar boom. As the model for Alain Resnais and Alain Robbe-Grillet’s Last Year in Marienbad, it also changed the history of film.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Adolfo Bioy Casares (1914–1999) was born in Buenos Aires, the child of wealthy parents. He began to write in the early Thirties, and his stories appeared in the influential magazine Sur, through which he met his wife, the painter and writer Silvina Ocampo, as well Jorge Luis Borges, who was to become his mentor, friend, and collaborator. In 1940, after writing several novice works, Bioy published the novella The Invention of Morel, the first of his books to satisfy him, and the first in which he hit his characteristic note of uncanny and unexpectedly harrowing humor. Later publications include stories and novels, among them A Plan for Escape, A Dream of Heroes, and Asleep in the Sun. Bioy also collaborated with Borges on an Anthology of Fantastic Literature and a series of satirical sketches written under the pseudonym of H. Bustos Domecq.

Suzanne Jill Levine is the author of numerous studies in Latin American literature and the translator of works by Adolfo Bioy Casares, Jorge Luis Borges, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, and Manuel Puig, among other distinguished writers. Levine’s most recent book is Manuel Puig and the Spider Woman: His Life and Fictions. She is a professor in the Spanish Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

New York Review Books
Copyright © 1963-2011 NYREV, Inc. All rights reserved.

2010-12-25T22:19:00.002Z

2010-12-25T22:16:00.004Z

Iori Wallace at Kunstverein Düsseldorf

2010-12-25T15:53:00.006Z

Iori Wallace:
WONDERTOONEEL

11 December 2010 - 30 January 2011

The passion to collect rapidly loses its ardour as soon as it meets the obsession to catalogue and classify the coveted items of interest. In his work the Welsh artist Iori Wallace (*1982) often reworks such classifications and shifts the focus from the objects themselves onto the peripheral characters, conversations and domestic dramas surrounding the collecting, display and desire of handcrafted objects.

Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen © 2010

AOSIS - Alliance of Small Island States

2010-12-05T14:16:00.010Z

Secretary-General Addresses AOSIS Meeting on Climate Change. On the eve of the Summit on Climate Change, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (left) addresses a high-level meeting of the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS) on the same issue, held at the Rose Center of the American Museum of Natural History, in New York City.

About AOSIS
The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) is a coalition of small island and low-lying coastal countries that share similar development challenges and concerns about the environment, especially their vulnerability to the adverse effects of global climate change. It functions primarily as an ad hoc lobby and negotiating voice for small island developing States (SIDS) within the United Nations system.
AOSIS has a membership of 42 States and observers, drawn from all oceans and regions of the world: Africa, Caribbean, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean, Pacific and South China Sea. Thirty-seven are members of the United Nations, close to 28 percent of developing countries, and 20 percent of the UN's total membership. Together, SIDS communities constitute some five percent of the global population.
Member States of AOSIS work together primarily through their New York diplomatic Missions to the United Nations. AOSIS functions on the basis of consultation and consensus. Major policy decisions are taken at ambassadorial-level plenary sessions. The Alliance does not have a formal charter. There is no regular budget, nor a secretariat. With the Permanent Representative of Saint Lucia as its current chairman, AOSIS operates, as it did under previous chairmanships, out of the chairman's Mission to the United Nations.
AOSIS's first chairman was Ambassador Robert Van Lierop of Vanuatu (1991-1994), followed by Ambassador Annette des Iles of Trinidad and Tobago (1994-1997), Ambassador Tuiloma Neroni Slade of Samoa (1997-2002), Ambassador Jagdish Koonjul of Mauritius (2002-2005), Ambassador Enele Sopoaga of Tuvalu (acting chairman 2005-2006), Ambassador Julian R. Hunte of Saint Lucia (2006), Ambassador Angus Friday of Grenada (2006 - 2009), and the present chairman Ambassador Dessima Williams of Grenada.

Copyright © Alliance of Small Island States 2009

Nauru Project Collaborator Dan Coopey's solo show 'Position 1' opens at the Agency Gallery, London

2010-10-27T13:54:00.013+01:00

Dan Coopey's solo show at the Agency Gallery, London, opens in the end of October 2010. The exhibition will also feature a video piece commissioned by the Nauru Project and based on Dan Coopey's research on the Pacific tradition of String Figures.

Position 1

(two-channel videos & ink jet prints, 2010 courtesy the artist)

Dan Coopey
Position 1
30 October – 16 December 2010
Private View, 29 October, 6 – 9pm

Dan Coopey’s first solo exhibition at The Agency gallery, incorporating wall works, video and large-scale sculpture, continues the British artist’s ongoing investigations into the restrictions placed upon visual language by it’s incumbent means of representation.

A series of monitors relay demonstrations by a string figure expert as he goes through various modes of representing narratives through this ancient transcultural means. The expert remains anonymous however – his face digitally obscured – concentrating the viewer’s attention on the ability of depiction using the limiting constraints of string and the human body. The work continues themes brought to prominence in a previous extensive body of work Print Errors (2008 –) in which images were abstracted and ultimately destroyed by the failures of a home printer in the dying stages of its ink cartridge. Like the failure inherent in that body of work, here the instructor is always faced with the likelihood that his art will fail in its representative aims. With no sound, and the storyteller’s facial expressions obliterated; the narrative to the actions are lost, leaving only changing abstracted, architectural, models of string. The ongoing human desire to communicate primary imagery through secondary means is documented as being not merely a modern, technologically minded preoccupation but something far more historic and perhaps even intrinsic.

A series of 31 fly posters pasted to the gallery walls display an illusive narrative. Taken from a 1970’s Israeli children’s book with the original Hebrew text removed, the illustrations depict abstract shapes in bold flat colours seemingly shifting between each page. Without an eligible translation these mysterious images are akin to the forms depicted in the videos, autonomous and devoid of translation their apparent logic remains internal.

Dominating the gallery’s two floors are a series of architectural scale sculptures in which different coloured, densely woven wool sheets are stretched between two ceiling and floor mounted steel poles, their natural fall broken by the angled leaning of a glass sheet. In differing the angle relationship of glass to material in each work Coopey highlights the issue of constraint and limitation against variation again, this time in a design context. In repeating the work Coopey is asking the viewer to consider the gallery space and the sculpture’s formal makeup in the same context as the string figures: a situation of constant variability within unchanging formal parameters.

A duo of wall-mounted, A4-printed, Adobe-standard colour spectrum, collated at a spiral, act as formal pivot to the exhibition: within their arrangement they mask off significant blocks of colour leaving a dominating pigment, which in turn, relate formally to both the sculptural and video-based work. The spectrum, as generated by computer software, is demonstrative of the wide colour range available to the software user; yet ultimately it remains a limited construct.

Dan Coopey’s solo exhibitions have included Doodad at the Hayward Gallery Concrete space curated by Tom Morton in 2009. Group shows include SYC New Contemporaries;Wysing Arts Centre Presents at the Wysing Arts Centre as part of Field Broadcast; Riff Raff at A Palazzo Gallery curated by David Southard; Meteor at New Court Gallery curated by Oliver Basciano (all 2010); and Urchin Eater at Yinka Shonibare’s Guest Projects in 2008. He was recently proclaimed one of ten sculptors to look out for by Ten magazine.

theAGENCY
66 Evelyn Street
London, United Kingdom

Cabinet Magazine Summer 2010 Issue: ISLANDS

2010-10-27T13:44:00.008+01:00

Table of Contents

Columns
Colors / Red
Maggie Nelson
Something dipped
Ingestion / Table Manner
Anthony Grafton
The disposition of the Last Supper
Inventory / An Anthology of Memories from Cabinet’s Published Past
Alejandro Cesarco
Working through our issues
Leftovers / The Future of Neglect
Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss
Urban renewal and the politics of refusal
Main
Radiantly Malevolent
Adam Jasper
Louis Wain’s psychotic cats
Blue Notes
Brian Dillon
Selling the siren song of the medicine cabinet
Scratch and Sniff
Gary Leggett
Diagnosing the allergic reaction
If It’s Part Broke, Half Fix It
George Pendle
The sincere horse sense of Dr. George W. Crane
Artist Project / Transmission
Maria Friberg
Dry Mountain Water
Allen S. Weiss
Afloat on a sea of stones
Cabinet v. Beşiktaş
Soccer as never before
Islands
Lords of the Ring
Alistair Sponsel
Beneath the surface of the atoll
Islands and the Law: An Interview with Christina Duffy Burnett
Sina Najafi and Christina Duffy Burnett
The juridical shape of America’s insular empire
Artist Project / Pulau Pejantan
Institute of Critical Zoologists
The Silence of the Dams: An Interview with Tetrapod No. 16-2-77
Mats Bigert, Sina Najafi and Tetrapod No. 16-2-77
Isles of Safety
Tom Vanderbilt
Considering the traffic island
A Topical Paradise
Hernán Díaz
Literary archipelagos since the great age of exploration
Artist Projects / Washed Ashore
Keren Cytter, Jason Dodge and Annika Ström
On the Monstrosity of Islands
D. Graham Burnett
Betrayal, solitude, madness, despair
The Islanders
Andreas Hiepko
Castaways in a divided Berlin
Artist Project / 65-Point Plan for Sustainable Living
Jeremy Drummond
An Archipelago of Centers
Sandy Isenstadt
A modernist reinvention of the kitchen
And
Postcard / Loss Accountability of Top-Down Ontologies
Mary Mattingly
Bookmark / Napoleon, Penguins, and Beef Tea
Cabinet is a non-profit organization. Please consider supporting by subscribing to the magazine, buying a limited edition artwork, or making a tax-deductible donation.

© 2010 Cabinet Magazine

A review of Judith Schalansky's Atlas of Remote Islands

2010-10-06T21:59:00.017+01:00

Nauru isn't covered by Judith Schalansky in her Atlas of Remote Islands – just published in English by Penguin – but the found narratives woven into the histories of the fifty other islands profiled, will strike a chord with those familiar with the Pacific island’s tragic story. In her introduction Schalansky, a typographer by trade, explains she harboured a long endured fascination with maps and the exoticism that they hold within their careful cartographic coding, stemming she reasons, from the isolation of her childhood growing up behind the wall in East Berlin. Schalansky’s still-maintained preoccupation with the romantic notions of islands, which she raptures about, is strange given the stories of paradise lost, betrayal and criminality that she unearths in the histories of many of the fifty inhabited and remote islands subsequently profiled.

Each island is given a double page spread, with a carefully illustrative map on one side, faced with a short anecdotal history on the other, researched by the author through rare books. Also included for each is a timeline and a figure charting the diminutive population size of these communities. The reader hears stories of rotting whale carcasses subsuming the uninhabited Antarctic island of Deception; the tinpot despotism of the lighthouse keeper of Clipperton Atoll in the Pacific Ocean; the death of marooned sailor Harry Eld at the beaks of a thousand birds on Australia’s Macquarie Island; the much media-covered abuse rife among the 48 residents of Pacific Pitcairn; and the historic high child fatality rate among the Hebridean people of St Kilda. The histories that Schalansky recounts are not verifiable fact, but they offer a narrative in which – for all the geographic symbolism of the maps therein – humans play the central role. The reader cannot help but be left with a pessimistic take on our condition. That as a species, we are prone to the kind of horror that Joseph Conrad subjected Charles Marlow to as the protagonist in Heart of Darkness, one that, given isolation from distraction, people’s propensity to instigate an unnerving terror on each other, comes to a frightening fore.

Oliver Basciano

Lilypad: A Floating Island for Climate Change Refugees

2010-09-17T19:30:00.002+01:00

The Kiribati Islands

2010-09-17T18:57:00.006+01:00

Part of the British Colony of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, the Gilberts adopted the name Kiribati at independence in 1979. The state comprises 33 islands in the mid-Pacific ocean.
Geography:
Kiribati consists of three groups of tiny very low-lying coral atolls scattered across 1,930,000 sq miles of ocean. Most of the islands have central lagoons.
Climate:
Central islands have a maritime equatorial climate. Those to north and south are tropical, with constant high temperatures. There is little rainfall.
People & Society:
Local people still refer to themselves as Gilbertese. Apart from the inhabitants of the island of Banaba, who employed anthropologists to establish their racial distinction, almost all people are Micronesian. Most are poor subsistence farmers. The islands are effectively ruled by traditional chiefs, though there is a party system based on the British model.
The Economy:
Until 1980 when deposits tun out, phosphate from Banaba provided 80% of exports. Since then, coconuts, copra, and fish, have become the main exports, but they islands are still dependent on foreign aid.
***Insight:In 1981, the UK paid A$10 million to Banabans for the destruction of their island by mining.
FACTFILE:
Official name: Republic of Kiribati
Date of formation:1979
Capital: Bairiki (Tarawa Atoll)
Population: 91,985
Total Area: 274sq miles (710 sq km)
Density: 336 people per sq mile
Languages: English, Kiribati, Other
Religions:Catholic 53%, Kiribati Protestant 39%, other 8%
Ethni Mix: Micronesian 98%, Other 2%
Government: Non-party Democracy
Currency: Australian $ = 100 cents

Source: Atlas, Dorling Kindersley Limited

Nauru emergency extended until October

2010-09-17T18:44:00.001+01:00

Nauru’s caretaker government has extended a state of emergency for another 21 days until early October. The country has been stuck in a political stalemate for months, ruled for the past three months by a caretaker government using emergency powers.
This came after Parliament failed to elect a new President following two general elections. Nauru’s caretaker president Marcus Stephen has said the opposition should take any challenge it has to the Supreme Court over its claim that the state of emergency is illegal.
News Content © Radio New Zealand International
PO Box 123, Wellington, New Zealand
Posted at 23:22 on 15 September, 2010 UTC

Family Heraldry Crest for the island of Meropi by Maria Georgoula for artists' residency 'Legitimate Possession'

2010-08-19T12:36:00.006+01:00

The small island of Meropi off the coast of Kardamili, Messinian Mani, Peloponnese

2010-08-19T12:25:00.006+01:00

The ‘little Island’ (‘nisaki’ in Greek) or what is also referred to as the island of ‘Meropi’ is situated off the coast of the small town of Kardamili in the Messinian section of the Mani Peninsula south west of the Peloponnese. The island is small and uninhabited. Its only building, a small chapel with house named after Virgin Mary on its north west side overlooking Kardamili, was built around the end of the 17th century for a small group of monks to keep as a monastery. The island also bares a remaining section of a Venetian fortress that can be seen from the bay of Kardamili together with the chapel. During heavy floods between 2001 and 2003, a section of the building collapsed and a supportive section was added. Findings from the Venetian period also include a marble lion’s foot that is displayed in the museum of Kardamili and a cracked bell that lies on the island. There is also an olive plain with a threshing floor and three cisterns one of which may still be used if needed.
A Venetian map of 1707 refers to the island as ‘La Mad’ presumably an abbreviation of 'La Madonna' the name of the church. The island has also been referred to as ‘Mile Limani’ deriving from ‘Kardamili Port’ while the British Navy mentioned it as ‘Chapel Island’. Nowadays, many locals refer to the island as ‘Meropi’, a Greek female name possibly given by a Greek soldier working for the geographical section of the Greek army after his beloved one. Finally, the island has also been referred to as ‘Amygdaloniso’ meaning ‘almond island’ after its almond-resembling shape.
Almost no historical or other material can be found on the island apart from a brief reference by Greek travel writer and journalist Kostas Ouranis and another equally brief by Evliya Celebi the Turkish traveler and civil servant who visited the Mani in 1670. He described it as, "A rocky and dry island, its Kastro is found on the north coast and in its interior are three churches and other buildings. There are many cisterns which provide water for the sheep and goats of villages opposite which graze the island." Evliya also tells how "The Gazis (Turkish soldiers) of Koroni attacked and destroyed the island with their frigates, transferring its inhabitants to the mountains opposite where they created the village of Prasteio…."
In 1862, the family of the current owner purchased the island from the monks. Today the island is also used as a mark for fishermen. Each year, on 23rd August a service takes place in celebration of Virgin Mary.

Text based on an interview with owner Mr.Takis Skoufis

ΘΕΜΙΤΗ ΚΑΤΟΧΗ / LEGITIMATE POSSESSION ΕΙΚΑΣΤΙΚΗ ΣΥΝΑΝΤΗΣΗ / ARTIST RESIDENCY

2010-08-02T09:27:00.001+01:00

Δελτίο Τύπου
28/07- 07/08/2010
ΕΚΘΕΣΗ/EXHIBITION
Εγκαίνια: Σάββατο, 07/08/2010
Διάρκεια: 08/- 30/08/2010
ΚΑΡΔΑΜΥΛΗ / ΜΕΣΣΗΝΙΑΚΗ ΜΑΝΗ
Συντονισμός / Υπεύθυνος παραγωγής: Θεόδωρος Ζαφειρόπουλος
Από τις 28 Ιουλίου έως τις 7 Αυγούστου 2010, 26 Έλληνες και ξένοι καλλιτέχνες θα συναντηθούν και θα «κατασκηνώσουν» στην Καρδαμύλη της Μεσσηνιακής Μάνης με σκοπό να παράξουν έργα και in situ δράσεις, εντός των 10 ημερών της διαμονής τους. Με την ολοκλήρωση της παραγωγής, από τις 7 έως και τις 31 Αυγούστου ,τα έργα τους θα παρουσιαστούν σε δημόσιους και ιδιωτικούς χώρους της Καρδαμύλης. Παράλληλα, θα πραγματοποιηθούν επισκέψεις, ομιλίες και παρουσιάσεις από επιστήμονες, αρχιτέκτονες, θεωρητικούς και επιμελητές. Το πρόγραμμα είναι ανοιχτό στην συμμετοχή, την παρακολούθηση αλλά και τις παρεμβάσεις από το κοινό της τοπικής κοινωνίας.

Μετά την ολοκλήρωση της εικαστικής αυτής συνάντησης θα εκδοθεί δίγλωσσος κατάλογος ο οποίος θα παρουσιαστεί σε μια ειδική εκδήλωση το Φθινόπωρο του 2010.
Άξονας όλης της δράσης, η «Θεμιτή Κατοχή».

Τι γίνεται όταν η ελευθερία της καλλιτεχνικής έκφρασης συγκρούεται με τους διαφορετικούς νομικούς κανόνες? Μπορούμε π.χ να χρησιμοποιούμε χώρους και αντικείμενα που καλύπτονται από ιδιοκτησιακό καθεστώς χωρίς την άδεια του κατόχου?

Η ροή της ζωής διαμορφώνει συμπεριφορές, δικαιώματα και υποχρεώσεις που αποτυπώνονται σε κανόνες ηθικής ή νομικής φύσεως. Οι νόμοι είναι η πιο διακριτή και αυστηρή διατύπωση κανόνων. Η ηθική, η αθωότητα και η λυτρωτική ένταση της δημιουργίας και των δημιουργών, που συντελούν ταυτόχρονα στην πιο διεισδυτική ματιά στις κοινωνικές εξελίξεις, διαμορφώνουν τους δικούς τους ιερούς άγραφους κανόνες.

Ας ονομάσουμε το δημιουργικό αυτό δίλημμα «Θεμιτή Κατοχή». Ο όρος «Θεμιτή» αναφέρεται στις άδολες προθέσεις του δημιουργού και ο όρος «Κατοχή» στα νομικά δικαιώματα του κατόχου. Έτσι, μέσα από την ένταση αυτού του διλήμματος καλούνται όλοι οι συμμετέχοντες καλλιτέχνες να δημιουργήσουν τα έργα τους, πάντοτε σε συνομιλία με το ιδιαίτερο φυσικό και κοινωνικό περιβάλλον της Μεσσηνιακής Μάνης.

Το συγκεκριμένο project θα αποτελέσει μια γενικευμένη δοκιμή της θεμιτής κατοχής. Με αφετηρία το γεγονός της συγκεκριμένης εδαφικής εντοπιότητας της Μάνης που συχνά παρουσιάζεται ως το προπύργιο ανεξαρτησίας και εδαφικής ακεραιότητας, η πρόκληση απέναντι στις «δυνατότητες» χρήσης- χρησιμοποίησης και χρηστικότητας του Ιδιωτικού και Δημόσιου χώρου αποτελεί μια ιδιαίτερα οξυδερκή πρόκληση απέναντι στην οποία η Σύγχρονη Εικαστική σκέψη και πρακτική μπορεί να καλύψει ένα εξαιρετικά ευρύ ερευνητικό φάσμα.

Το project υποστηρίζεται από φορείς της Αυτοδιοίκησης και Ιδιώτες του Δήμου Λεύκτρου Μάνης.

ΣΥΜΜΕΤΕΧΟΝΤΕΣ ΚΑΛΛΙΤΕΧΝΕΣ
Johanes Abendroth, Νίκος Αρβανίτης, Εριφύλη Βενέρη, Μαρία Γεωργούλα, Xinglang Guo, Θεόδωρος Ζαφειρόπουλος, Μαίρη Ζυγούρη, Matteo Fraterno, Δημήτρης Θεοδωρόπουλος, Έλσα Κιουρτσόγλου, Άννη Κωστοπούλου, Ιλάν Μανουάχ, Sven Mueller, Massimiliano Scuderri, Λουκάς Μπαρτατίλας, Σοφία Ντώνα, Νίνα Παππά, Θάλεια Ραφτοπούλου, Αλέξια Σαραντοπούλου, Ζάφος Ξαγοράρης, Μαρία Τσιγάρα, Carly Schmitt, Φίλιππος Ωραιόπουλος, Φούλα Σακέλη, Γιάννης Καπέλλος, Νίκος Κασκούρας.

Για περισσότερες πληροφορίες:
Email: kardamiliproject@gmail.com
Τηλ: 6945 586045

Utopia Project 2010: Utopia & Nature

2010-06-17T14:48:00.003+01:00

International Residency Programme organised by the Athens School of Fine Arts in collaboration with the Slade School of Fine Art & The Utrecht School of Art.

UTOPIA & NATURE
Based on H.D. Thoreau's “Walden
EXPERIMENTATION AND RESEARCH IN CONTEMPORARY
ARTISTIC PRACTICES

Utopia as an expression of unlimited imagination and desire is a concept that has always fascinated artists. Art can see in utopia a means to lift the restrictions of reality and accomplish the free expression of its visions. Starting from this connection and its various instantiations in the history of art, this workshop deals with the multiple significations, implications and dimensions of utopia. In everyday discourse the term ‘utopia’ is usually connected with an ideal future, with what seems impossible within the confines of reality, and is thus bound to create margins for many and often contradictory interpretations. Utopias are the places of dreams and hopes for a better life, which provide an escape from an always incomplete and constraining status quo. Sometimes they involve grandiose metaphysical schemata, other times they take the form of ephemeral shelters distanced from detailed sociopolitical reflection. Always, however, their creation is based on the criticism of established (political and aesthetical) institutions and social structures. Inspiring antithetical political and artistic practices, praised but also criticized, utopia has been a focus of debate for many disciplines and approaches. By blending theoretical discussion, aesthetic reflection and the artistic work of the participants, this workshop aims at critically exploring the various interconnections between theory and praxis, vision and reality, desire and finitude, utopia and dystopia.
In this workshop we will research methods and tactics and we will ask from the students to collect material or to archive material that they already have and reconsider it, to think alternative ways of presentation of materials, ways of incorporation of them in their pictorial language. The aim of the workshop is to exhibit the results of this research, the ideas or the work that will come out of it.

This year’s workshop investigates the relationship between contemporary artistic practices and the natural environment. Art is often seen and spoken in terms of being environmental, critical and subversive. For the past decades, the natural environment has seen radical changes and has been at the forefront of many contemporary art projects. What is the relationship between art and nature? During the workshop, we will consider different ideas in contemporary art making and theory to examine from varying perspectives the question of art and nature.

Location

Utopia Project is an international program organized by Asfa. The residencies take place in the annex of Asfa in Rethyno Crete every July for about 20 days. Asfa provides a range of accommodation listings and arranges a special group rate at a student hotel each summer as well as student travel and city guides.

The annex is uniquely placed on the top of Evligias Hill in Rethymno, 15 min walk from the center of the old historical town. Daily bus schedule links Rethymno to the airports of Chania and Heraklio.

Island_Built Event by Aristide Antonas & Filippos Oraiopoulos

2010-05-22T14:12:00.011+01:00

UNIVERSITY OF THESSALY / SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING / DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE + + + + + + + LANDSCAPE WORKSHOP / ARISTIDE ANTONAS - CONCEPTUAL DESIGN WORKSHOP / FILIPPOS ORAIOPOULOS / PEDION AREOS 38334 VOLOS
ISLAND – built EVENT

A SERIES OF DESCRIPTIVE CONSTRUCTIONS, INITIAL APPROACH, AN IDENTITY PENDING :
The project revolves around the island of Youra. The island lies in the Aegean sea, six hours from Volos, and is part of Magnesia Prefecture’s Sporades islands. Youra is deserted, as are most of the islands in the region. Some of them (Trikeri, Alonnisos) were places of exile for political prisoners, while others belonged to Mount Athos monasteries (Kyra Panagia, Pappous) or were used as pastures (Piperi). The small number of buildings on Youra (traces of a small monastery, a preserved church, ruins from the first installation of the first guards, today’s installation of the guards) points to the island’s deserted state. Until being ceded to the Greek State, Youra was a hunting ground for Greece’s kings. The island also has mythological associations, since – legend has it – the Cyclops’ cave is placed –according to a legend- there. Shipwrecks are a common occurrence at Youra; many sunken ships and their loads are gradually being located in the deep waters of the greater region. A ship carrying 200 immigrants ran aground on the deserted island on 26 December 2001. Youra is located in the middle of the Alonnisos marine park; it is a protected biotope and may not be visited without special permission from the Sporades Forest Office. The island is guarded by two to three guards who have rotating ten-day shifts.
The ISLAND – built Event project constructs the island’s pending identity. The interest lies in the difficulty of forming a local identity, seen as a dynamic, creative act. Specific events have led to the island being identified as a certain form: thus, it has become an island of shipwrecks, of politics, of ecology, of desertedness or of isolation, depending on one’s perspective. Each individual act performed on the island has formed or reformed it as a different form. The built event that is being organized, involving the presentation of projects and talks on the island, will replace the island’s lack of identity (lack of generality) with something. The island’s pending identity is thus a platform or an open forum. The place is interpreted as a collection of produced narrations describing it and of constructions that it awaits. It is defined by patience. This patience (which welcomes and organizes the pending identity) characterizes the project. The project is presented as an action stemming from this patience.
The procedure involved in bringing the project to fruition entails the following practical steps:
A. Artists, philosophers, anthropologists, scientists and architects as well as the students from the University of Thessaly’s TAM School of Architecture: (final year students and graduates) and other Schools are invited to participate in the project.
B. From the start of the spring semester students will work on the project of the University of Thessaly’s TAM School of Architecture. With the students’ involvement in the project’s production process, it is the educational process that is introduced into its production process, and not the other way round.
C. Discussions and debates will be held at the TAM Department of Architecture between special guests and the students, on issues relating to the island of Youra and which also concern other islands in Magnesia Prefecture (Trikeri, Alonnisos, Kyra Panagia, Pappous, etc.). One month after the project’s commencement – on 5 April – the students and any of the guests who are interested will visit the island of Trikeri, and on 16 and 17 April there will be a first visit to Youra, heading from Alonnisos and via the Sporades islands.
The insistence on the place itself cannot be understood without conceptualization. An itinerary and a meeting on the island form a research field on intentions and inventions of the island. Intentions and inventions are presented through discourses and constructions. In the field of the uncertain island, the place itself and any identity of the place stay suspended. In the same field the built event is the notion that provides a substitute for identity without betraying suspension. The decision, the coincidence and the incident organize each time temporary structures of the built event.
The two days of discussions have been organized as follows: Having agreed to participate in the project from the start and having received the available material (conception of the project – key concepts, photographs, geographical, historical and anthropological material, written accounts, etc.), the participants will visit the place on 14 May (Saturday) during a joint trip. There, they will share their initial thoughts on the subject and exchange views at the place itself (Youra), weather permitting, or on the closest inhabited island (Alonnisos). In the meantime, once the project has commenced, the participants will be able to send their thoughts or projects (material that they have developed with a specific construction in mind for the island or letters expressing their agreement, objections or alternative ideas pertaining to the project’s organisation), thus creating interventions throughout the project’s duration by developing a network that promotes the ongoing exchange of information and critiques. They can bring or send the final draft of their (philosophical, anthropological, scientific, poetic, theatrical and other) speech and their constructions (whether in the form of art, film, photography, music or other) by June, at which time – if necessary – one last visit to the island will be arranged, marking the ‘end’ of the project.
D. During the project’s production, based at the TAM Department of Architecture in Volos, artists, philosophers, anthropologists, architects and scientists will, alone or in groups, present talks or constructions referring or corresponding to a visit to the island of Youra or other similar places in the Magnesia region (Trikeri, Alonnisos – places of exile; Pteleos beach – place of shipwrecked immigrants, etc.). The same participants can also present a new talk or construction specifically on the particular project during these two days.
E. Lastly, different agencies (Department of Architecture, University of Thessaly, Alonnisos Municipality, ecological agencies, Forest Office, Volos immigrant support group, immigration agency, etc.) will be invited together with the previous guests to develop the project into a permanently open forum on this particular island.
The project is already in progress and its duration will be determined by the action taken by people regarding Youra and according to the contracts being drawn up. If we conceptualize the project’s structure (built event) as the plot of a live, realistic theatrical play, then the roles of the participants will be identified with their actual participation. The project will officially come to an end at a specific date and time to be announced. The results of the ISLAND – built Event project (discourses and constructions) will be placed in containers (mobile exhibition spaces) for viewing, while sheets submitted by the participants will be compiled into a large book to which new material will be able to be added (the book will be bound with removable screws). Thus, although presented as a temporally specific ‘theatrical’ event, the project will remain permanently open. The first stage in the process will be presented in a separate edition. The staging of such an architectural project (built event) aims at composing the content and unfolding the process dialectically through ongoing transformations in the internal time of the project’s constructions.

ARISTIDE ANTONAS & FILIPPOS ORAIOPOULOS

Orkney Islands

2010-05-12T15:09:00.010+01:00

The Islands of Orkney are a group of 70 islands and skerries 10km (6.2 miles) from the north-east tip of the Scottish Mainland. The largest island, known as ‘Mainland’ is home to most of the total 20,000 population but the main north islands of Shapinsay, Gairsay, Stronsay, Wyre, Rousay, Egilsay, Eday, Sanday, Westray, Papa Westray and North Ronaldsay and the south islands of Graemsay, Hoy, Burray, Flotta and South Ronaldsay are also populated. Although Burray and South Ronaldsay are ‘islands’ they are connected to Mainland Orkney by causeways. A few of the very small islands also have permanent or seasonal residents.
The islands of Orkney and Shetland are littered with archaeological remains. People first came here over 5000 years ago and many of their remains survive. New architectural sites are discovered every year. Some, such as Skara Brae, were buried under sand, only to be exposed by a winter storm thousands of years later; Skara Brae presents a fascinating glimpse of stone age life from the beds with their little shelves and cubby holes, to the remains of jewellery and medicine. Research is ongoing here and elsewhere excavation by archaeologists continues to uncover new information. The islands are therefore of enormous interest to anyone who enjoys first-hand contact with ancient settlements and buildings, and the people who once lived here.

The State of Sabotage

2010-05-11T12:12:00.003+01:00

Robert Jelinek and Christoph Steinegger, Graphic by Gustave Doré and SGD
The formation “Sabotage” was founded by artist Robert Jelinek in the area of the Documenta IX in Kassel in June 1992. Sabotage” began operating in 1992 as a small project and collective, later 1994 as Sabotage Communications- an art organisation and music label, than a union of various sublabels brought together by their shared way of thinking and similar style of expression through different media. Since 1992 more than 100 international “public sabotages” have taken place in form of performances, actions, events and exhibitions. There are a number of flexible subdivisions which emerge as the needs arise and dissolve under their own inertia. Each of the sublabels primarily works within its medium, nevertheless their bonds are firm and fruitful.

The fields of activities of Sabotage defy definition of contents, theme and geographic concentration and therefor different projects and target groups are represented in different sublabels such as: art: Sabotage actions (1992-95), Alibi Service (1992-95), Sabotage projects (since 1995) or CaSH (1998). music: Sabotage Recordings (1994-99), Craft Records (since 1995), Subetage Records (since 1999).

“Sabotage” in this sense means the braking of conventions, the artistic interruption of processes of thinking and manipulational transfer. “Sabotage” is not a technic that transports meaning. Sabotage transgresses positions without presenting a new social order, provokes thinking by intervening in the official discourse. Sabotage is the experiment to brake up incrustation of an organised bourgeois society that insulates itself against all changes and tries to make thinkable new possibilities.

Atlantium Global Sovereign State

2010-05-11T12:06:00.001+01:00

The Empire of Atlantium is a unique parallel sovereign state based in New South Wales, Australia.

Atlantium recognises that the days of nation-states founded on fixed geographical locations or majority ethnic identities are numbered, as global mobility, cultural evolution, and the growth of electronic communication networks render the assumptions that underlie and provide justification for their existence increasingly obsolete.

In an age where people increasingly are unified by common interests and purposes across - rather than within - traditional national boundaries Atlantium offers an alternative to the discriminatory historic practice of assigning nationality to individuals on the basis of accidents of birth or circumstance.

Atlantium has a heritage that spans three decades. What began as a local political statement by three Sydney teenagers on 3rd Decimus, 10500 (27th November, 1981) has since evolved into the world's foremost non-territorial global sovereignty movement and state entity, with a diverse, rapidly growing population living in some ninety countries.

Atlantium is predicated on a belief in the inevitability and the desirability of eventual global social, economic and political union, and it operates as a secular, pluralistic, liberal, social democratic republican monarchy. We encourage the active participation of Citizens in the public life of the Empire, and invite anyone with the desire and motivation to forge their own destiny as a true citizen of the world to consider joining us.

George II
Imperator et Primvs Inter Pares
Sovereign Head of State

The Virtual State of NSK

2010-05-05T22:15:00.003+01:00

The NSK State was created in 1992 by the groups comprising the Slovene arts collective Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK). Amongst others these included the groups Laibach, IRWIN, Noordung, New Collectivism and the Department of Pure and Applied Philosophy. Neue Slowenische Kunst was founded in Ljubljana in 1984 as socialist Yugoslavia began to fracture. By the end of that decade the NSK groups had gained a reputation across Western Europe, America and Japan. NSK works and actions have commented on many of the political events of the last two decades and NSK is now widely acknowledged to have played a key role in the political and cultural history of Slovenia and former Yugoslavia, even being credited with playing a role in the pluralisation of society and culture in 1980s Slovenia.
The NSK State was created in the aftermath of Slovene independence. It has carried out a series of temporary ‘Embassy’ and ‘Consulate’ events in locations including Moscow, Ghent, Berlin and Sarajevo plus other collective actions. The State is conceived as a utopian formation which has no physical territory and is not identified with any existing national state. It is inherently transnational and describes itself as ‘the first global state of the universe.’ It issues passports to anyone who is prepared to identify with its founding principles and citizenship is open to all regardless of national, sexual, religious or other status. It now has several thousand citizens across numerous countries and all continents, including a large number in Nigeria. The NSK State itself is a collective cultural work, formed by both the iconography and statements of its founders and its citizens’ responses to these and to the existence of the state. It is also part of the wider ‘Micronations’ movement which has grown increasingly visible and received growing critical and theoretical attention in recent years.
www.times.nskstate.com

Micronesia 1900 A.D.-Present, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

2010-04-18T21:35:00.004+01:00

The twentieth century represents a tumultuous period of cultural, political, and artistic upheaval for the peoples of Micronesia. In 1900, Germany controls the vast majority of the region, including the Marshall, Caroline, and Northern Mariana Islands as well as Belau and Nauru. Britain holds a protectorate over Kiribati, which later becomes a formal colony, while the United States has political authority over Guam. The presence of larger numbers of Westerners and the continuing activities of Christian missionaries have an increasingly profound impact on many Micronesian cultural and artistic traditions.
From 1908 through 1910, the Hamburg Südsee Expedition, traveling widely among Germany's colonial possessions, documents the arts and cultures of Belau and the Caroline and Marshall Islands. The expedition also acquires vast collections of Micronesian art and material culture. Museums and universities in other parts of Germany also assemble substantial holdings of Micronesian objects. Following the German defeat in World War II, the League of Nations transfers authority over Germany's Micronesian possessions to Japan.
The Japanese colonial period witnesses the further erosion of Micronesian art and culture. In one instance, however, a Japanese expatriate is responsible for the development of a new tradition within Micronesian wood carving. During the 1930s, folklorist Hijikata Hisakatsu (1900–1977) persuades Belauan artists to carve scenes depicting incidents from their traditional histories and legends, traditionally carved and painted on the rafters of ceremonial houses, on smaller portable boards for sale to outsiders. The creation of these "storyboards" develops into an important Belauan art form, which continues to the present. The late 1930s and early '40s are also marked by the increasing construction of fortifications, airstrips, and other military installations throughout Japan's Micronesian territories as the nation prepares for war.
Of all the cultural regions of the Pacific, Micronesia is the most severely impacted by World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Allied and Japanese forces fight many of the major battles of the Pacific campaign on Micronesian islands. These include Tarawa in Kiribati, Chuuk (then known as Truk) in the Caroline Islands, Peleliu in Belau, and Saipan in the Mariana Islands. In 1945, the aircraft Enola Gay takes off from Tinian in the Marianas to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. After the Allied victory, control of Japan's Micronesian possessions is transferred to the United States, which administers them as a Trust Territory. In 1946, the U.S. begins the first in a series of nuclear weapons tests in the Marshall Islands when it detonates an atomic bomb on Bikini Atoll. The testing program ends in 1958.
In the 1960s, the islands and archipelagos of Micronesia gradually begin to achieve political independence. Nauru is first in 1968, followed by Kiribati in 1979, Belau in 1981, and the Federated States of Micronesia (encompassing all the Caroline Islands except Belau) and Republic of the Marshall Islands in 1986. At the end of the century, only Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the majority of whose inhabitants vote to remain part of the United States, are under the authority of a foreign nation.
For Micronesia's artistic traditions, the first half of the twentieth century sees a dramatic decline in many art forms as the result of colonial and missionary influences. A number of Micronesian sculptural traditions, such as the creation of dilukai (female gable figures) in Belau, and masks in the Mortlock Islands (part of the Caroline Islands), cease to be practiced during this period. However, other art forms such as the carving of hos (weather charms) and seated figures in the Caroline Islands, the construction of the elaborately decorated ceremonial houses in Belau, as well as the majority of women's arts, such as weaving and plaiting, continue. The second half of the century sees a growing renaissance of Micronesian cultural and artistic traditions. In 1955, what will later become the Belau National Museum is founded in the capitol of Koror. The gradual independence of Micronesian nations that begins in the 1960s is accompanied by renewed interest and respect for indigenous art and culture. The numerous art forms that survived the colonial period are rejuvenated and taught to new generations of artists while others are revived. In the final decades of the century, a significant contemporary art movement begins to develop among Micronesian artists.
In Europe and the United States, the latter half of the twentieth century witnesses a growing awareness of the spare and elegant aesthetic qualities of Micronesian art. Micronesian objects, formerly considered simply as sources of anthropological information, begin to be appreciated and displayed as works of art. Initially, Micronesian pieces are incorporated into general exhibitions of Oceanic art, such as Arts of the South Seas in 1946 or The Art of the Pacific Islands in 1979. In the 1980s, museums and art galleries begin to mount exhibitions devoted exclusively to Micronesian art. These include broad surveys such as The Art of Micronesia in 1986, and explorations of specific traditions like Palau (Belau) in 1992.

Basket (Egadakua), late 19th–early 20th century
Nauruan people, Nauru, Caroline Islands
Pandanus leaves, fiber, shark's teeth
H. (excluding handle) 3 1/2 in. (8.9 cm)
Gift of the American Friends of the Israel Museum, 1983 (1983.545.1)

In former times, the people of Nauru in the Caroline Islands used small box-shaped baskets, called egadakua, to carry personal items such as drinking cups and containers for precious oils. The baskets were also associated with childbirth, where they were used to hold the implements and substances needed to bring the newborn into the world. Like all the fiber arts on Nauru, egadakua were created by women. The baskets were typically adorned with designs that served as family emblems, indicating the rank and lineage of the bearer. Although the woven portion of this basket is unornamented, the rows of shark teeth that adorn the edges possibly served to indicate the family affiliations of its owner.

Bracelet, late 19th–early 20th century
Nauruan people, Nauru, Caroline Islands
Fiber, coral beads, traces of feathers
Diam. 2 in. (5.1 cm)
Gift of the American Friends of the Israel Museum, 1983 (1983.545.26)

As among other Micronesian peoples, women on Nauru excelled in the fiber arts, creating a diversity of beautifully plaited ornaments and accessories. Possibly intended for a child, this small bracelet, only two inches in diameter, is remarkable for the fineness and detail of its decorative plaitwork, executed in alternating strips of plain and dyed black fiber woven together to create a rhythmical geometric design. The bracelet is further adorned with pink coral beads that were originally accented with small bundles of feathers, only traces of which remain.

2010-04-08T21:54:00.000+01:00

2010-04-08T21:53:00.000+01:00

Nauru Coat of Arms

2010-04-08T21:39:00.003+01:00

2010-03-25T11:06:00.004Z

'Watering Can' New Poem Collection by Caroline Bird

2010-01-16T13:43:00.004Z

Caroline Bird’s two earlier collections were acclaimed for their exuberant energy, surreal imagination and passion - 'a bit of a Howl for a new generation', wrote the Hudson Review. Watering Can celebrates life as an early twenty-something. The poems, writes Caroline Bird, 'contain prophetic videos, a moon colonised by bullies, weeping scholars, laughing ducks, silent weddings - all the fertiliser that pours on top of your head.' The extraordinary verve and compassion of her verse propels us into the anxiety of new responsibilities. Raw but never hopeless, Watering Can has comedy, wordplay and bright self-deprecation.

What an original captivating and spellbinding voice. Bird is fearless like 'the girl who dropped her ice-cream down a volcano and leaped in after it'. She’s dangerous and witty too with a rare quality of imagination. This is a wonder, a beautifully written book of poems. - Lemn Sissay

Published by Carcanet December 2009

2010-01-12T12:37:00.010Z

New species of Sea Urchin for auction on Ebay

You can get almost anything at eBay. Now it seems you can even discover a new marine species at ebay.

Sea Urchins are a member of the Phylum Echinodermata, Class Echinoidea. Rather then having arms or legs the sea urchin actually has long spines as a substitute. These spines are used primarily for camouflage, locomotion, and defensive purposes. The sea urchin feeds on sea grasses, algae, and decaying organic matter. One can see their close relationship to the sand dollar and starfish by looking closely at their underside, near the middle, where the familiar 5 pointed star pattern can be found. Its body is enclosed in a rigid shell, or test, made up of ten double rows of immovable plates firmly joined in a regular pattern. Sea urchins reproduce sexually by discharging either eggs or sperm into the sea, where the eggs are fertilized. This animal, which feeds primarily on vegetation and small organisms, can easily repair damage to its shell, spines, tube feet, and pedicellarieae by regenerating new parts. Sea urchins live on undersea rocks, ledges, boulders, or coral reefs.

2010-01-10T20:12:00.000Z

Islanders with a tame frigate bird for catching fish. Almost all food is imported, with the exception of fish.

POLITICAL L IFE IN NAURU

2010-01-10T20:01:00.005Z

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip visit Nauru. Great Britain helps fund rehabilitation for mining-damaged land.
and five cabinet ministers as well as a judiciary and a public service. Nauru maintains diplomatic relations with several countries. There is no military force.

Nauru is an active member of the South Pacific Forum and participates in the South Pacific Bureau of Economic Cooperation (SPBEC) and the Forum Fisheries Agency. As the chair of the forum in 1993, Nauru presented a strong case for sustainable development in the small Pacific island states. Its strength is derived from the struggles of its leaders to maintain recognition of Nauruans' rights in their own land. As early as 1921, concerns about Nauruans' returns from phosphate were raised by leaders such as Timothy Detudamo and Hammer de Roburt. Those leaders pressured the BPC and the Australian administration to grant greater shares of the phosphate returns to the Nauruan people and provide better living conditions. Administrative costs were taken out of phosphate profits rather than paid for by Australia as the administering authority under the League of Nations mandate. In 1927, the Australian administration instituted a system of chiefs for the twelve districts. In 1951, Nauruans chose to replace that structure by a more democratic elected body, the Nauru Local Government Council (NLGC), with elected councillors representing the districts. The NLGC was disbanded in 1992. The government now consists of a president.

Drunk driving, particularly by young Nauruan men is a serious problem and the leading cause of death on the island. Families exercise social controls, though there is a police force for major social violations. Concerns about pay-outs from the Trust Funds led to a sit-in across the airport runway in 1993 at the time the Pacific Forum leaders were arriving. That reaction resulted in those women (it was a women's action) being fined, some lost their jobs, and the leaders were arrested. There is no jail as such on the island. Serious criminal offenders may be incarcerated in an Australian jail by arrangement.

'Iles tragiques: histoires terribles et magnifiques' by Hugo Verlomme & David Konig

2009-11-16T16:48:00.003Z

Les îles fascinent ; on les dit paradisiaques. Mais au-delà des clichés, une autre réalité transparaît, souvent terrible, effarante. Après ce livre, vous ne verrez plus les îles de la même façon ! Tour à tour prison ou utopie, l'île agit telle une loupe qui déforme les émotions. Dans ce huis-clos infernal, les passions s'exacerbent, parfois jusqu'aux pires furies criminelles. Chacune de ces histoires vraies fait apparaître des facettes de l'âme humaine au révélateur des îles. Un mélange explosif où se croisent pirates et aventuriers, négriers et utopistes, naufragés et déserteurs, sur les plus petites scènes du monde. Exécutions, complots, trahisons, viols, anthropophagie, supplices, domination, folie, deviennent alors le lot quotidien.

String Figure Ten Men

2009-11-13T18:27:00.002Z