Imaginary Homelands
Installed in Sam's Eden 2, CCA Derry~LondonDerry, 'Imaginary Homelands' is an archipelago of longing. The installation is made up of wishes of kin islands and shared belonging. It opens up ideas of sanctuary and belonging for liminally placed people; those living in-between queerness, cultures, races or identities, interconnected by the very experiences that other them.
Each map explores ideas of ourselves as kin islands within an ever-expanding archipelago. The eroding grid lines and strips of copper wire extending from some maps, reference a breaking down of traditional map forms into sites of connection.
Imaginary Homelands installation, Sam's Eden 2, 2023, CCA Derry~LondonDerry, Photo: Paola Bernardelli & CCA Derry~Londonderry
Islands created using automatic painting, drift over fragmented grid lines and off of edges. The maps scatter across the gallery walls, which are washed in an ocean blue. The colour flows from wall to wall, into a map of global ocean currents by the gallery windows.
The paint is hand-ground from blue sandstone and malachite, touching on themes of deep time and generational migration.
Sandstone being a sedimentary rock, is made by layers and layers of sediment collecting and compressing over time. While malachite was used centuries before to create copper items, which opened up trade between isolated groups of people.
Layers of geological time are broken open in the pigment. Turning deep geological layers into future imaginings.
Imaginary Homelands close-up , Sam's Eden 2, 2023, CCA Derry~LondonDerry, Photo: Paola Bernardelli & CCA Derry~Londonderry