Picturing the Island

This article investigates how recollections of a colonial childhood might be re-contextualized within Pacific Ocean cultures and their histories and the fields of island studies and post-colonialism, in the language and materials of creative visual art. Examining Crawford’s artist book Picturing the Island (2016) as a case study to resolve these questions, this paper explores whether printed artworks, and particularly artworks employing the book form, present an appropriate opportunity to gather these diverse narratives. It asks: given the historical significance of the printed page and its various origins in news media, the library, literature and fine art, does an artist-made book, with its poetic and discrete significance as an art object, carry a resonance powerful enough to contemporize the past?