Walter Whall Battiss
(1906-1982) - (exhibition by) Mikinaak Migwans
- (curated by) Sarah Robayo
- (curated by)
Pages: 7pp Size: 296mm Language: English
Place publication: Toronto Publisher: Art Museum, University of Toronto
Additional notes: A group exhibition. How many artists imagined new forms of nation? Battiss was among the artists chosen and WAM & JGCBA lent several FOOK items for the exhibition.
From the catalogue: Throughout the exhibition, we see artists reinvent boundaries both territorial and conceptual. Perhaps the most idiosyncratic of these models is the concept of Fook Island, created by South African artist Walter Battiss and his collaborators. This utopian "island" is in some ways a composite of the many real islands he has visited, including Zanzibar, the Seychelles, Madagascar, Fiji, Hawaii, Samoa, the Greek Isles, and the Comoros. Blending together into an imagined space, Fook Island developed its own visual language replete with its own alphabet, maps, portraits of its inhabitants, taxonomies of local plants, and every currency, stamps, and driver's licences and passports.