Stepping-stones to the Edge: Artistic Expressions of Islandness in an Ocean of Islands

• Published in: Island Studies Journal
• Main Author: Laurie Brinklow
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Island Studies Journal 2013
• Subjects: Physical geography; GB3-5030; Great Southern Ocean; Main Island; Southern Ocean; Stepping Stones; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.24043/isj.275; https://doaj.org/article/b2b61dfcefde4939a5eea0b951f6645e

Since the earliest of times, islands have captured the artistic imagination—and, often, for the artist who finds his or her muse in being ‘islanded’, the smaller the island the better. Archipelagos offer an ideal setting for artists who take their inspiration from place: on small islands off islands they can experience an intensity of island living they might not otherwise have on a main island: boundedness and connection, isolation and community. This paper examines expressions of islandness by artists who live on islands off islands that are poles apart—‘archipelagos’ of the Canadian North Atlantic and the Great Southern Ocean. It draws upon interviews with those artists and writers to consider the nature of humans’ attachment and attraction to islands, exploring through the lens of phenomenology what Stratford et al. call the “entanglement between and among islands”.