Vanishing Acts (top)

This ‘Archive for Discarded Identities’ contends with traditions of collection, organisation and systemisation a liated with deep storage. Visiting Deception Island, tourists partake in an Antarctic pilgrimage to the 18 stations of the archive situated along the interior coastline of a submerged caldera. The stations mark out vanished sites read o the superimposition of historical maps, where cartographic deceit and misrepresentation reveal the intrigue of early expeditions of Antarctic discovery. Along the beach we come across, for example, the Sea Foam Combs, the Snow Catcher and the Tea Tower, and ascend
the Shouting Stairs. The state of isolation envisaged here is not one of absolute dislocation reached through geographical remoteness but rather an opportunity to encounter a dialogue between absence and presence, solid and void, lost and not found. (text: Kathy Waghorne, Future Islands catalogue)

Location:
Deception Island, Antarctica

Designer:
Holly Xie

Status:
Speculative