Isles of the Dead began with a journey which I undertook in 2005, during the course of which I travelled to four islands dedicated
to Saint Michael: San Michele in Venice, Mont St Michel in Brittany, St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall and Skellig Michael, which lies
off the coast of County Kerry.
I made the trip with Böcklin’s celebrated image
The Isle of the Dead in mind. It too depicts a journey.
Indeed Böcklin’s isle shares many features with the four islands. At each island I filmed the act of crossing over from the mainland.
These journeys were very different from one another - a short walk across a beach to St Michael’s Mount, an even shorter walk over
a causeway to Mont St Michel, a waterbus to San Michele and a rough motor launch trip out into the Atlantic to Skellig Michael. Along
the way I discovered that at one time Mont St Michel had itself been known as the Isle of the Dead.
For the completed piece I have
realised Böcklin’s image in 3D (or one version of it—he produced five paintings of the subject), and the four crossings have been
combined into a video which is projected onto it. The boat in Böcklin’s painting is absent from my piece - the point of view of the
soul crossing over to the island is contained within the video.
