From the Island is an umbrella project focused on the juxtaposition of ideas about memory and migration.  By weaving together narratives about space exploration and human migration it facilitates consideration of the processes by which we remember, summate and communicate feelings of home and foreignness, the limitations of memory in a human and cosmological context and wider issues of identity, globalization and border activism.

The Memory and Migration photograph (above) taken in October 2012 pays homage in part to the Pale Blue Dot photograph taken on Valentine’s Day 1990 when Voyager’s camera was pointed back to Earth to take one last photograph.  The photograph was taken at the Nordic Optical Telescope in the Canary Islands on the day the BBC announced that Voyager had left the Solar System – becoming the first man-made object to travel to inter-stellar space. The Canary Islands are also the destination of migrants from Africa, wishing to make their way to Europe. After travelling in their small fishing boats for days they land in this rocky outpost of Europe seeking a better life in the Land of Stars.  

You can download and read the current project note here.