STEPHEN WALTER
STEPHEN WALTER
31 x 22.7cm
Graphite on Paper
AT THE HEART of the island lies the spiral structure drawn from the golden section. It’s a landmass populated by different tribes and mentalities. Institutions have emerged. Places have evolved out of ideas. In our time it seems that unifying forces are on the wane – new forms of ecosophy are still yet to emerge. Amongst the secular and globalised population of the island, The Golden Section is its divine space and unifying force.
The Golden Ratio 1.618 was used in various geometrical workings to gain the shape and mass of the island itself within the borders of the page. The scale of the map represents a page width of 40,075 km - the circumference of the Earth. The town of Zenite alludes to ‘zenith’ and is on the opposite side of the island to the costal town of Hard Brexit. The Town of a Thousand Eyes alludes to the urban name given to the Stasi HQ in Berlin, Lichtenberg, so called the ‘The House of One Thousand Eyes’. It is a place of surveillance and informants. The League of Tribes is a re-boot of The League of Nations, founded in 1920, the first international and intergovernmental organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace.
(Text by Stephen Walter 2018 and edited by the explorer and writer Dr Huw Lewis-Jones for his book An Atlas of Imagined Islands, 2019, Thames and Hudson. A special thanks to Huw for my inclusion in his fabulous book).
This island projects touches on another Nova Utopia, too large to be included here. Thomas More’s book Utopia served as the islands’ foundational text where upon I played out the intervening 500 years, dismantling his once communalist society into a capitalist state of privately owned land. Likewise, small groups and individuals have instituted an array of their own utopian projects and ideals. The unifying force at play on this Island today – is only that of a Neo-liberal Market Philosophy – everything is for sale. Nova Utopia has sold its soul into mass-tourism.
The Utopian projects of today can only be realised on a localised level rather than instituted on a grand scale. Better, and more practical utopias are those that re-institute, re-purpose and re-mix. Clean Slate Utopias are dead! We require the remains and the excrement of others in order to thrive. The imagining of an ideal island - must contain all the opposing views, warts and all. In thriving on a greater understanding of ourselves, and the natural substrates on which we live, we will recognise the balances.