Description
Artwork info
“Olive cannot believe that the trial outcomes were true, and supported the men through it all. Denial it may be, but that is somewhat understandable. After all, almost every male member of her family was convicted: father; brother; husband; two sons. Her third son was acquitted due to lack of evidence.
She seemed fragile and frantic. As though she might break at any second. I enjoyed her sense of humour, her hospitality, and her companionship. I became very attached to Olive, and found it hard to leave her behind on island – I wondered what her life would have looked life if she had left. I wondered if she would have been happier. Now she seems defined by her state of compromise.
Olive has multiple government jobs (the government is the island’s only employer) and scurries between them. It seems that being busy provides a necessary distraction from her troubles. Here she maintains the roads, strimming seemingly invisible weeds from the dirt roads. She reminded me of an Imperial Stormtrooper.” – 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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