Atlas des îles perdues, Edition 2107 and île perdue – Fakaof

Atlas des îles perdues (The atlas of lost islands) (2007) by Marie Velardie seeks a dialogue on the fate of scores of inhabited islands across the world that face submergence due to rising seas. The installation consists of ink drawings Velardie made of many such sinking islands, among them Minicoy in The Lakshadweep and the many islets that form The Maldives, both situated off the coast of Kerala. These are arranged in a rough geographic order on the walls of a gallery converted into an open globe by plotting meridians along its length. In the middle is situated Velardie’s Atlas des îles perdues, a bound volume from the future containing all the drawings. Its cover announces the date of its release: 2107, by when all the islands it lists would have disappeared under the sea.