Artist Jasmijn Visser has a thing for landmines. And with conflict. These two topics came together in a project on the Falkland Islands. The result is a book and an exhibition of map material in the Allard Pierson Museum.
An exhibition of a few maps is not what the usual visitor expects in the Allard Pierson, the archeology museum of the University of Amsterdam. The minimalistic arrangement is intended as a teaser for the book Conflict Atlas. Geopolitics and contingencies on the Malvinas – Falklands archipelago by Jasmijn Visser.
On the contrary, this book is overflowing with information and deliberately forms a contrast with the exhibition. The whole came about after a research period of several months in the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas in Spanish). Here Visser experienced the haphazardness of the history of this area, as she beautifully describes it. NEMO Kennislink spoke with Visser and curator Reinder Storm (Special Collections) about the exhibition.
Dancing with science
For the Falklands project, artist Jasmijn Visser collaborated with various scientists to look at conflicts at different levels. The Falklands War in 1982, in which Argentina and Great Britain fought over this archipelago, was a good test case. Visser:“This conflict is compact and the course of geopolitical conflicts and human actions in them is therefore easier to track and analyze.”
Visser describes this collaboration with science as a dance. “Scientists all bring their own research methods with them and as an artist I look at conflict in a very different way.” In her book she connects the events of the Falklands conflict on a local and global level. For the exhibition she highlights the six most special connections. These have something to do with the Falkland Islands as well as with other events from Britain's colonial past.
To illustrate this, Visser delved into the archives of the Special Collections. She then created six rooms in the exhibition space that now house maps that would normally remain in the archives. “The Special Collections is famous for its maps from the 17th century, but there are so many gems here from later periods that people never get to see. I thought this exhibition was a good reason to show some more modern maps.”
Surprised by collection
The result is surprising, as curator Reinder Storm describes Visser's choice:“The collection consists of more than 100,000 cards and our main task is to preserve them properly and make them accessible. We haven't seen many of the cards that Visser has selected for decades. As an artist, she really went through the collection differently than we do, she surprised us with our own stuff.”
A scientist will not be limited to map material alone, but will investigate a broader subject. “For example, the activities of printers or the knowledge people had about their world in the past:what did they think it looked like?” It doesn't necessarily matter what the maps look like for scientific research, but it does for Visser. She selected the material for the exhibition very visually.
Make connections
In 2013, Visser spent several months in the Falkland Islands investigating the origins of the conflict over the area since its discovery in 1598. She was not only interested in information from local archives or the interviews with residents who had experienced the Falklands War, but also her own experiences on the island. It was important to experience the climate, which has influenced history.
“Climate influences decisions people make and therefore how history unfolds. That while the climate does not play a (major) role in history books. For example, in 1765, both Britain and France had settled in the Falklands, but they were unaware of each other's existence. I wondered how that was possible. The area is not bigger than Flanders! But when I was there, I experienced how strong the wind is on the islands. That's an important reason why people didn't just go exploring.”
The exhibition is not an ordinary exhibition, but a work of art. Visser makes connections between infographics and maps from her conflict atlas and those from the Special Collections. For example, she places 40 geographic maps, which together form the surface of the moon, next to an infographic of the lunar eclipse from 1982. At the same time that Argentina lost the Falklands War to Great Britain and the Junta there collapsed, Argentina was overshadowed by this eclipse. . At the same time, the heir apparent Prince William of England was born. I thought this was a nice picture of accidental connections in history.”
According to Storm, curators would never choose the same cards for an exhibition as Visser did. This is because an artist tells a story in a different way than science. These forty moon charts are a good example of this. “We would show just one of them, to illustrate a story, rather than all of them. That gives a completely different effect.”
Mines
Visser wants to show the richness and complexity of history with her artwork. “Take Zimbabwe, that's one of the six links between local and global history that I'm showing. Zimbabweans play an important role in clearing the mines after the Falklands War. They have this expertise because of mine clearance in their own country, which was an English colony until 1980. So they are now clearing for their old oppressor, on an island where the mines pose no immediate threat. The minefields are fenced off, and only a single goat and cow has exploded since the war. In Zimbabwe the mines are a direct danger to the population. Mine clearers are needed more there, but they earn more money in the Falklands. I want to emphasize that irony.”
Those minefields aren't that bad, it turns out. They have a positive effect on the wildlife of the Falkland Islands. The mines only explode when at least fifteen kilos are stepped on. Endangered penguin species have been able to move freely in areas impassable to humans since the war. The minefields have been transformed into penguin sanctuaries, providing shelter for the penguins.
Like a movie
When you enter the exhibition space, you first walk through a corridor and then you see white walls with some cards in black frames. The idea behind this is that the exhibition is a kind of film and each card is a frame in that film. Visser wants to create a storyboard and literally bring it to life. The idea arose when Visser saw the hallway at the entrance to the hall:it reminded her of a scene from Hitchcock's film Vertigo. Here a man follows a woman through a dark alley into a flower shop.
“In the exhibition space, the colorful maps about Panama are comparable to the sea of light and color in the flower shop from the film.” Until the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, the Falkland Islands were the last stop for ships to stock up. The canal has therefore had a major impact on both global trade and the local economy of the islands.
These cards form the opening scene in Visser's film, followed by the story of Zimbabwe. The moon room is the final and the final conclusion is the independence of Argentina. “So the frames are literal. Art has a broader interpretability, but the message from the book is important. It shows the haphazardness of human action in history. Visitors have the choice to dive right into the subject with the book in hand or, if they don't feel like it, just look at pretty cards. The exhibition works on different layers.”