Marcos Lutyens: Island Ark

The Parisian venue of the Alberta Pane Gallery presents a selection of recent works by Marcos Lutyens from the Island Ark project, including a large-scale installation, paintings, and drawings. Part of the artist’s work on the effects of global warming, Island Ark is a constantly evolving research subject that aims to remedy the disappearance of island nations due to rising sea levels. As these countries contemplate the migration of their populations to avoid the rising waters, Island Ark proposes an idealistic solution: the creation of Inclusive Utopian Zones called IUZ. Imagined by Lutyens and inspired by Renée Daumal’s surrealist novel Le Mont Analogue, in which the protagonists seek to reach a half-real, half fictional island, these IUZ take the form of elevated island structures that replace atolls and islands partially or entirely lost beneath the waves. These structures, created from repurposed oil platforms, become veritable nation-states. They are made up of inhabitable green spaces with economies of housing, agriculture, and fishing. They also possess EEZ, Exclusive Economic Zones and see areas where a state exercises sovereign rights to exploit resources. Island Ark is the first IUZ. Lutyens imagines a new configuration of government and way of life, where the population would be able to choose from a range of 64 activities, including care for the seniors and children, mediation, training and maintaining sensory awareness, monitoring the surrounding marine environment, and practicing traditional fishing methods.