Presented as part of Ten Days on the Island

Composing Archipelagos considers what could happen if lutruwita/Tasmania was to cast off colonial myths of islandness and reframe itself as part of an archipelago stretching across the Asia Pacific. The archipelago, with its unifying but elastic quality, asserts the ocean as a connecting rather than a dividing force. For scholars and activists from Southeast Asia, the Pacific and the Caribbean, it challenges perceptions of regional knowledge and experience as remote and scattered.

Composing Archipelagos originates in Tasmanian artists’ early commitment to geographic perspectives. At the same time, artists with enduring affinities to land, sea and sky are joined by those who loosen the ties between geography and identity.

The artists’ inspiration includes their Pacific ancestral homelands; the energies of the ocean floor that destabilise the divide between the terrestrial and the oceanic; the voyages of Abel Tasman (1642-43/44) who sailed as an agent of the Dutch East India Company (VOC); and the vogue for private islands and the biosecurity they offer. The exhibition acknowledges intergenerational relationships and Indigenous knowledge through the contribution of senior artist Ricky Maynard, James Tylor of Kuarna/Māori/European heritage and Hobart-raised Fijian-Australian Torika Bolatagici.

This project is supported by Ten Days on the Island and Project Eleven.