With “Switzerland and Other Islands” Aleksandra Mir presents on the occasion of her exhibition at the Kunsthaus Zürich a map of a special kind. In her cartographic investigation of Switzerland, she explores the various meanings of the motif “island”: political-sociological, mythological and symbolic.
Aleksandra Mir is a (field)researcher. This is clearly shown by the large-format maps drawn with felt-tip pen on paper. Based on industrially produced maps, the artist draws views of places as diverse as the Gaza Strip, the Tower of London, or the Nevada test site for atomic bomb tests. She deliberately mixes popular destinations from the tourism industry with politically explosive areas, but unites them with a comic-like, almost childishly naive language of forms.
With the selection of the detail, the change of scale and the reduction to a few coordinates, Aleksandra Mir creates a completely new cartography, in which reality and fiction mix and the limits of representation become clearly apparent. For the exhibition in Zurich, Aleksandra Mir is realizing a series of new large-format drawings based on the theme of the island, understood both as a political-sociological and a geographical entity.
“Switzerland and Other Islands” unfolds an entire universe of drawings: the publication not only provides much to see, but also more to think about ...