One might write, \u201cThere are as many islands as can be counted,\u201d a phrase that would be doubly true. There are as many islands as can be enumerated, and as many as can be narrated. Yet, this idea quickly becomes unsettling, for islands, in both quantitative and narrative terms, lean toward the impossible and the infinite. Indeed, one could just as rigorously assert, \u201cThere are as many islands as cannot be counted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Materially, geographically, islands are diverse and often incalculable. They appear and disappear, are located and lost, emerge and submerge; time itself alters their number. Even more fascinating, though, is the impossibility of defining when a piece of land surrounded by water becomes\u2014or ceases to be\u2014an island. How large must it be to earn the name? At what size does it outgrow the concept? Are places like Great Britain or Japan islands? What about Australia, or even the vast continents like Africa or America, surrounded by water after all? Did the creation of the Panama Canal transform South America into an island when water first flowed through it?<\/p>\n
On the smaller scale, further questions arise: Are the stones emerging from water at low tide, where children play and dock toy boats, islands? What about volcanic rock tips barely breaking the ocean\u2019s surface, with their twelve nautical miles of natural resources? Islands, therefore, defy material classification; like Zeno\u2019s paradox, they are infinite in both their grandness and minuteness, their permanence and their ephemerality.<\/p>\n
Narratively, the situation grows even more complex. Everyone\u2014every person, every nation\u2014has their own islands. Writers invent, translate or recreate them each time they set pen to paper. Memories reshape them over and over, transforming them with each recall. Grandmothers and grandchildren remember islands differently, just as they differ in the eyes of poets and real estate speculators, conquerors and ordinary wanderers.<\/p>\n
An island is an immensity, something inherently bounded but endlessly breaking its borders. It reminds us that defining a thing does not imprison it but rather multiplies and expands its possibilities. An island is always many options, many losses and many triumphs. Those who love their island work tirelessly for another one\u2014the one they dream of, the one just beyond the horizon.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s exhibition, organised by Tenique Cultural to accompany Muestra de Cine de Lanzarote, expands once again into the public space of Arrecife to share these reflections. Its aim is to provoke thought and emotion that can reach a wide swath of the capital\u2019s and island\u2019s inhabitants.<\/p>\n
The proposal centres on an inaccessible kiosk in Plaza del Almac\u00e9n, a nod to bygone years, paired with a publication distributed to schools, shops, libraries, and homes. Four authors and four illustrators, all with significant connections to Lanzarote, were given silhouettes of historic maps of the island\u2014ancient depictions of a place far removed from the Lanzarote we know today. Each contributor used these maps as a springboard to expand the strangeness of the island through narratives that transcend the territory, seeking something deeply personal.<\/p>\n
The exhibition and publication act as reminders that the place we inhabit is not fixed, not a defined or certain image. Instead, Lanzarote is multiplicity, diversity, possibilities, dreams, and hopes. In other words, Lanzarote is all that we want it to be, all that it can be\u2014and a little bit more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One might write, \u201cThere are as many islands as can be counted,\u201d a phrase that would be doubly true. There are as many islands as can be enumerated, and as many as can be narrated. Yet, this idea quickly becomes unsettling, for islands, in both quantitative and narrative terms, lean toward the impossible and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":9,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"folder":[20],"class_list":["post-2186","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/muestradecinedelanzarote.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/muestradecinedelanzarote.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/muestradecinedelanzarote.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muestradecinedelanzarote.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muestradecinedelanzarote.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2186"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/muestradecinedelanzarote.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2187,"href":"https:\/\/muestradecinedelanzarote.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2186\/revisions\/2187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/muestradecinedelanzarote.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muestradecinedelanzarote.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/folder?post=2186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}