Migration and hospitality

“Imagine a place on the move - rocks that travel thousands of miles. Imagine a world where people are free to move where they want – a world that extends a welcome to strangers.These two ideas connect Nowhereisland, the art project, to the archipelago of Svalbard in the High Arctic”

Arctic expedition team member, Tim Cresswell, in his Resident Thinker article

In 'Origins', we explored global interconnected issues such as climate change and economic crises which have serious implications for territories such as 'Svalbard'. In 'Nation', we learnt of the histories of land grab and colonisation and in 'Citizenship', about the 12 million people who are defined as stateless.

Nowhereisland is a migrant itself. Emerging from the melting ice of a retreating glacier, from a place which itself bears the marks of current global crises, Nowhereisland has come to represent the migrant's journey and in doing so, calls upon those in the South West of England during the London 2012 Olympics Games to consider how they might welcome a visiting island nation to their home towns.

This section will go live in two weeks time and will trace the histories of migrant rocks, the modern day migration of peoples and will consider the meanings and interpretations of hospitality.