Islands in Relation: Art, Memory, and Environment

Islands have long inspired the artistic imagination—figured as sites of ethnographic encounter, spiritual retreat, or creative kinship. This half-day panel will consider the potential of island-based or island-informed artistic practices for critical reflection, cultural healing, and environmental justice. Oceanic islands and archipelagos, as conceptualised by Gilles Deleuze, are among the most critically impacted by the present-day climate emergency, facing sea level rise, water insecurity, storm intensification, biodiversity loss, and climate migration. We invite papers that examine the complex historical and ecological entanglements between islands and the wider world, foregrounding the enduring power asymmetries shaped by colonialism and globalization. Rather than treating artistic practice as a passive reflection of history, this panel positions it as an active, relational force in the formation of identity, memory, and resistance. In contrast to colonial imaginaries of isolation, purity, and boundedness, we draw on archipelagic frameworks of creolization (Edward Kamau Brathwaite), relationality (Édouard Glissant), and the “sea of islands” (Epeli Hau‘ofa) to envision islands as dynamic spaces of movement, transformation, and shared cultural life.

We welcome contributions that explore how artists engage with themes of livelihood, memory, gender, representation, and intangible heritage in the face of ecological crisis and neocolonial pressures. Particularly encouraged are investigations into artistic strategies that reconnect communities with silenced histories, challenge dominant narratives, and offer restorative, imaginative, and pluriversal futures.

Submit your Paper via this form. Please download, complete and send it directly to the Session Convenor(s) below by Sunday 2 November 2025:

Professor Karen E. Brown, University of St Andrews, keb23@st-andrews.ac.uk

Dr Ana S. González Rueda, American College of Greece, ARueda@acg.edu