S.A.D. of Itself II: Future Relics

Sometimes Archaeology Dreams of Itself II: Future Relics (2018) is the second investigative project by Nicola Baratto & Yiannis Mouravas on the intersection between Dream & Archaeology, a practice formalised as Archaeo-Dreaming. For Future Relics the artist duo embarked on a journey to Aruba, in the Dutch Antilles, that sparked a research on a mythical island named Antilia and its connection to a German WWII shipwreck: the SS Antilla. The outcome of their quest was presented at NEVERNEVERLAND–Amsterdam in December 2018, in the form of an art publication and a 2- channel video installation. The former was made in collaboration with Viktor Gogas, the latter with Marijn Degenaar, Francesco G. Gagliardi and Claudio Zaia. On the first cornerstone of such triangle, there is SS Antilla: a Nazi shipwreck that sunk off the coast of Aruba 1940 in the aftermath of the German invasion of the Netherlands. The second vertex of this geometry is Antilia: a phantom island with seven harbours, which appeared in the nautical charts of medieval cartographers before the Atlantic became widely explored, and eventually disappeared from mapping as no one ever found it. The third point is the Antilles, the cluster of islands Aruba is part of. The archipelago is an extension of the Dutch Colonial history and was named after the promises that the New World of Antilia and its sister Atlantis could bring into existence. This geometry materialises – both in the book and the video installation – as a mosaic in time & space. Through the employment of both historical and mythical languages, this construction builds a symbolic universe with complex ambivalences. A search for utopia is corrupted by dystopian memories. A quest for the unknown takes place in the ultimate tourist island. Death and immortality merge into a decaying artefact of World War II. The Western conception of the Caribbean as Paradise clashes with the tourist Caribbean Hell, as described by Angelique V. Nixon in “Tourism is the New Colonialism” (Resisting Paradise, 2015). Thus, the journey represents a mythopoetic–historical speculation of an Atlantic Past as seen through the experience of Antilla, both as a Nazi–wreck and an invisible island. As the future is an imminent moment, already inscribed into the present instant, the visual labyrinth of Future Relics reframes a given past into an immeasurable utopia. Dimensions: 16 x 26 cm | 80 pages 4-colour offset | A1 foldable silver-printed map on black paper attached Cover is silver-printed on black paper Includes a 2-color risograph postcard |edition of 252 copies