Hito Steyerl: The Island

The exhibition “The Island”, conceived by Hito Steyerl, unfolds as an installation that combines film, sculptural elements and archival materials to explore different temporal scales, from the Neolithic era to the twentieth century and the present. The project draws connections between archaeology, science fiction and technological culture, weaving together historical narratives and speculative perspectives.

The exhibition references the submerged Neolithic site near the island of Korčula and introduces figures linked to the intellectual history of the region. Materials relating to language historian Sachi Shimomura, daughter of Nobel Prize–winning chemist Osamu Shimomura, and writer and theorist Darko R. Suvin are presented within the installation. Two poems by Suvin and a copy of his book “Metamorphoses of Science Fiction” appear within a driftwood structure.

The second floor recreates an environment recalling the cinema where Suvin first saw “Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars” in the early 1940s. Red armchairs arranged on a raised platform reference the shape of the submerged island, while a large screen presents Steyerl’s film, accompanied by choral singing by the local Klapa Ivo Lozica.

The exhibition concludes with installations composed of driftwood structures supporting hemispheres that display projections of 3D scans of Neolithic artefacts and photogrammetries of the archaeological site. Through these elements, Steyerl contrasts the accelerated temporalities of contemporary technology with the deep time of geological and archaeological processes.