Thousands become ‘citizens’ of ideal nation

from here

Nearly 17,000 (Rabarama note: more than 20.000 now) people have signed up to be ‘citizens’ of a small island nation, as part of an innovative arts project visiting the south west coast of England this summer: www.nowhereisland.org

The nation, known as Nowhereisland, is a real island, 44 by 9 metres in size, from Svalbard, an Arctic region of Norway.
Alex Hartley, the artist behind the initiative, excavated the island after it was discovered from within the melting ice of a retreating glacier during an expedition. With permission from the Governor of Svalbard, in 2011 Hartley’s team towed the island into international waters where Nowhereisland was declared a new nation.

Hartley is one of 12 artists asked to create a public art project for the Artists Taking the Lead initiative – part of the Cultural Olympiad. Behind the Nowhereisland project is a key question: “If we were to start a new nation, how might we begin?”

Many of the islands new citizens have given their ideas for the constitution of the nation. Some of the ideas include paying less tax if you walk or cycle and that every citizen should get two days a month to follow their dreams.

Fifty-two resident thinkers for the project, including artist and musician Yoko Ono, ethical food chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, and founder of the Eden Project, Tim Smit, have joined members of the public in putting forward ideas on how a fictional idyllic island could be run. Views have been offered on environmentalism, peace activism, politics, art, sustainable farming, human rights and more.

Thousands become citizens of ideal nation Positive News art
The Nowhereisland embassy. Photo: © Max McClure
Nowhereisland will not be inhabited, but is being towed around the south west coast during the summer. Having left Weymouth on 25 June, the island is visiting ports including Exmouth, Torquay, Plymouth, Mevagissey, Newquay and Ilfracombe, before arriving in Bristol harbour on 7 September.

Events and activities will take place on land at each location where the island is moored, including with the involvement of local schools. The team has created an embassy for the island – a mobile museum of documents and objects explaining the story of the project, which is travelling on land to each location.

The island will be dispersed between its citizens when the tour ends.

TRANSFORMATIONS. CLASSICAL SCULPTURE IN COLOUR

(from here) Antiquity was white – as white as marble! For hundreds of years this fact has been one of the mainstays in the story of the origin of Western culture: and it remains firmly anchored in the notion we still have of our own culture today. This autumn’s major special exhibition at the Glyptotek turns the idea of the white world of Antiquity upside down and shows that Greek and Roman sculpture were colourful to a degree.

Ancient colours
Michelangelo and Thorvaldsen in colour? At first the thought seems absurd. But if they and other artists had been aware that the white marble of Antiquity was merely a tenacious myth, Western figurative art would probably have looked radically different. With some 120 original works and reconstructions, among them a large number of outstanding loans from museums in Denmark and abroad, the Glyptotek exhibition demonstrates that Antiquity was anything but sceptical of colour.

The exhibition traces the outline of the fascinating story of the development of colour from Greek to Roman sculpture. At the same time the thread is traced back to the better known use of colour in Egypt. And last, but not least, the exhibition points the way forward to some of the exceptions in later Western sculptural art, in which, resistance notwithstanding, polychromy gained a foothold.

From microscopy to the history of ideas
This autumn’s major special exhibition presents the results of the noteworthy, pioneering research undertaken by an international network of specialist teams  -  with the Glyptotek as an important contributor. In 2004 the museum presented an exhibition dealing with polychromy in ancient sculpture, shown first at the Glyptothek in Munich, and subsequently at the Vatican Museums. Since then the research has made considerable progress, as regards a more precise mapping of the development in, and the extent of colour use in the ancient world. This is a case of research of an interdisciplinary, almost detective character with its incorporation of advanced natural scientific methods such as laser, x-rays, infrared reflectography and electron microscopic examination of colour sections from original sculptures. The research results achieved internationally and presented here indicate unequivocally the necessity for a revised picture of Antiquity and thereby also of our own cultural self-awareness.

As if transformed – the Classical world in colour
The exhibition at the Glyptotek shows spectacular original works juxtaposed with experimental reconstructions in their original wealth of colour, the shocking sensuality of which, at one and the same time, makes Antiquity both more present and remote.

The mainstay of the exhibition’s storyline is chronology; but thematic interludes with each their focus ensures variety in the sequence of chapters. Accordingly there is a “zoom” in and out, from the ”big” story to close-ups of periods and individual works. In the same spirit the various investigative methods are documented and put into perspective.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue in both a Danish and an English version.

The exhibition is supported by:
A.P. Møller og Hustru Chastine Mc-Kinney Møllers Fond til almene Formaal, Augustinus Fonden, Queen Margrethe’s and Prince Henrik’s Foundation, Kirsten og Freddy Johansens Fond and Sadolin Farveland, Amagerbrogade, Jesper Hansen Aps.

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