Description
Artwork info
“Pitcairn Island used to be a staunch Seventh Day Adventist outpost. As Adventists, the Sabbath day falls on a Saturday. Adventists prohibit drinking, gambling, coffee, tea, tobacco, and the consumption of ‘unclean meats’, including shellfish. At one time, all alcohol was banned across the island, and later, when restrictions were eased, it was necessary to purchase a license to consume it.
Religion is a key part of the Pitcairn story, with John Adams having allegedly taught literacy using the Bounty Bible itself, a book held under lock and key in the church. When visited by Adventist missionaries, Pitcairn had seemed the perfect pious community; ripe for the plucking.
It became the SDA church’s crowning glory – a ‘paradise of morality’. The church funded various projects and passage off island to attend SDA conferences. Until relatively recently, the SDA had provided teachers for the school. In recent years, the role of pastor, usually held by an off islander, has been an increasingly difficult job to fill.
Pitcairn is no longer good press for the church. A tatty and aged picture of Jesus sits curled up in an empty bedroom, as though he too has been forgotten, or that Jesus had also turned his back on Pitcairn.” – Rhiannon Adam
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CONTACT | tom@opendoors.gallery
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Big Fence / Pitcairn Island
The Pitcairn Islands are the last British Overseas Territory in the South Pacific. Pitcairn was permanently settled by the infamous Bounty mutineers and their Polynesian captives in 1790, and their descendents, now numbering fewer than 40, still live there today.
The tiny, isolated, volcanic island measures just two by one miles, is 400 nautical miles away from its nearest neighbour, and is the least populated jurisdiction in the world. Due to the infrequent supply ship schedule (the island’s only direct access), Rhiannon Adam was trapped on Pitcairn for three months, spending two of those living at Big Fence… READ MORE
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Artist Bio
Rhiannon Adam is a photographic artist, born in Cork, Ireland, in 1985. She currently lives and works between London and the US.
In 1992, her parents sold everything they owned and bought a live-aboard sailing boat, Jannes. From that point, her childhood became nomadic, moving from place to place, mainly around South America and the Caribbean. She eventually moved to London as a teenager to live her with aunt, enabling her to begin mainstream education. She later studied at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and at the University of Cambridge.
Adam’s work is centred on research-based, long-form, social documentary projects that make use of analogue photographic processes and archive materials, as well as her on-going obsession with Polaroid and the materiality of the photographic image. Her early life experiences have had a lasting influence on her work, with a focus on remote communities, the concept of utopia, and the fine line between fact and fiction… READ MORE
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