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Nowhereisland

Nowhereisland, developed by artist Alex Hartley within a curatorial framework conceived by Doherty, was a three-year public art project. Part of an Arctic island was towed to Bristol to encourage people to think about what it would be like to set up a new nation and participate in that process. The winning South West commission for Artists Taking the Lead, the Arts Council’s flagship project for the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, Nowhereisland was also supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The project, growing out of Doherty’s curated research into durational approaches to public art, challenged conventional assumptions about where and when public art takes place, a high-profile example of a multi-faceted artform experienced in different places both remotely and locally across a prolonged period.

Nowhereisland included 52 commissioned responses by academics, artists, public figures and an extensive online research resource contexualising the work within Land Art history, geographical research in mobility and migration and climate change. It also operated as a socially progressive art project engaging with notions of public participation and citizenship. 40,000 people witnessed the artwork as island spotters, embassy visitors, contributors to the constitution; 23,003 people from 135 countries became citizens; 10,953 actively engaged in educational events, including 20 school and community groups in a year-long programme. By foregrounding the virtual public spaces where the work unfolded, such as the website (144,034 unique visits over one year), Doherty enabled an accumulative engagement to emerge beyond Nowhereisland’s physical display.

Nowhereisland was widely reviewed across the media (see portfolio) and resulted in an invited keynote lecture at Portland State University’s Open Engagement conference (April 2013) and contribution, ‘Relation to Citizen: Participation beyond the ‘event’ of the public artwork’, to Magdalena Malm (ed.), Imagining the Audience: Viewing Positions in Curatorial and Artistic Practice (2012).