The gilded cage

In the Australian context, Tasmania has long epitomised the Utopian/dystopian dilemma of the island within both the Australian imaginary and boreal projections of the antipodes more generally. To read the island sequence played out in Christine Anu&s;s Olympic performance in view of the formulation, each island/monad retains its regional specificity while comprehending the world. The tropism that interconnects miniaturisation, islands and utopianism is constructed by the panoramic gaze, and the colonial eye specifically. The nostalgic spatialisation of the island home provides or retains the possibility of return, as it constructs a world that necessarily inhabits a space prior to modernity. That this path is not available to everyone may serve as a reminder of the specific circumstances, histories and cultures of these islands. Yet if actual connection and encounter become the predicates for access to these places, then they may indeed transform into archipelagos rather than the gilded cages of colonialist expediency.

Art · Cage · Structural engineering · Australian History and Society · Engineering · Island Studies and Pacific Affairs · New Zealand Economic and Social Studies

• Australia, the Island Continent

  Open Access•Eileen Mcmahon, Elizabeth Mcmahon•Space and Culture•2010

  Add to list