Archipelago seeks to address issues of urban isolation exacerbated by car culture. The islands act as vehicles which carry communication instead of people or goods. Archipelago has no predefined destination. Its mobility is a strategy to initiate chance encounters and encourage people to leave the “desert island” of their normal routine. Each island will carry empty bottles and writing materials and circulate throughout the city. A participant can create an anonymous “message in a bottle” addressed to the world, which is then published on this website. Each piece of paper carries an unique ID named after an island somewhere in the world. A participant can type in their ID in the box on the top right corner to locate their message. 250 messages were collected over four days.
Commissioned by ZER01 for the 2010 01SJ Biennial, and presented with the support of the
James Irvine Foundation.
Special Thanks:
Tiffany Huang: for creating the entire graphic identity of Archipelago as well as this website.
Her thoughtful design really helped communicate the essence of the project to the public.
Patrick Lydon: for making sure the project continued to exist in documentation.
Greg Witt: for advice on how to build things, as usual.
Richard Lemarchand and Jill Short: for moving islands for me.
Alex Gibson and Will Schlough: for excellent fabrication help.
I also want to thank the following artists, for offering help whenever I needed it during our
time together at South Hall:
Ken Gregory, Chris Poulsen, Dallas Swindle, Beth Ferguson, Sachi DeCou, Scott Kildall,
Victoria Scott, Janaki Ranpura, as well as the staff, volunteers and organizers of 01SJ Biennial.