Temporary Islands

This work was included in Beyond Orientation - Eight Views, an exhibition in the Korea Culture House Pavilion in Vienna, curated by artists Anne Eggebert and Almut Rink. Margot Bannerman was one of eight artists invited to respond to the antique idea of a “Care of the Self,” relating to the idea of daily ethical practices. Notions of orientation, cultivation, care, autonomy and inter-dependence were suggested as a common link.

The location of the exhibition in Donaupark on an island in Vienna’s Danube River was a prompt for ‘Temporary Islands.’ Now a popular public gardens, the site had formerly been a rubbish dump and a notorious site of execution in WW2. Floating in the Iris Lake by the gallery space, the four ‘Temporary Islands’ (polypropylene sheeting /reused plastic/ elastic/plants) were ringed with marine rope and floats. The plant-life was collected from the lake surrounds and placed to suggest semi-tended but renegade spaces while echoing the large lily pads in the lake.

With their slightly precarious equilibrium, wayward vegetation and possibly toxic buoyancy, the islands were an ambivalent proposal suggesting adaptation, amelioration, anxiety and pleasure in no particular order.

• Organisation