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Spots•on•the•Map
The deserted islands of the
MediterraneanText by Elvia Wilk
The Habibas islands, about 12 km from the Algerian coast, are of volcanic origin. There are no permanent settlers, just a small jetty, a lighthouse dating from 1879, and a few small buildings. (Photo: © Desertmed 2009)
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Desertmed is a collective of artists, architects, writers and theoreticians who have been cataloging and documenting the deserted islands of the Mediterranean since 2008. These patches of earth rising up from the sea are technically territories of various nations, but in Desertmed’s images and audio they don’t look or sound like they belong to anyone – or any time.
Besides their spectacular natural landscapes, the rocky outposts host the remnants of former inhabitation: prisons, military outposts, private homes of the rich. The islands’ roles have changed and overlapped over time, cropping up or vanishing from maps according to their shifting political importance. Today, in the context of growing populations, rapid economic fluctuations, and rising sea levels, they’ve become strange icons of timelessness, a “state of
Zembra is a 432 metre tall rock formation off the Tunisian coast. Its cliffs make it almost a natural fortress with only one ancient port on the southern coast. It is currently used by the Tunisian army. (Photo: © Desertmed 2009)
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Desertmed is an ongoing interdisciplinary research project by Amedeo Martegani, Armin Linke, Giulia Di Lenarda, Giovanna Silva, Renato Rinaldi and Giuseppe Ielasi. The Desertmed project was most recently exhibited at the NGBK in Berlin.
Quote taken from project text by Amedeo Martegani.
a permanent, almost meteorological flux, of the appearance of the void, the desert, the social gap, the ungovernable zone, as a place of the soul.”
Greece has recently put its abandoned islands up for sale. Even the island of Skorpios, once the Onassis family’s private abode, is now on the market for 200 million dollars. Add to that equation the new shipping routes and infrastructural changes in the Mediterranean, and it seems like many of these islands will soon become less deserted. With them, the dream of the remote island utopia – dating from Robinson Crusoe to Gilligan’s Island – may become as remote as the islands once were.
The Galite Islands are a rocky archipelago and belong to Tunisia. Their location between Tunisia and Sardinia make them a strategically relevant point in the Mediterranean Sea, although their harsh landscape can hardly be called “welcoming”. (Photo: © Desertmed 2009)
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