Mike Nelson revisits desert island installation amid deepening despair
Mike Nelson’s new exhibition at Modern Art Oxford revisits an installation he showed there in 2004, transforming its desert shack into a more broken and exposed scene. The show reflects on the artist’s earlier hopes for change and suggests that political and social conditions have worsened, giving the work a mood of personal and collective despair.
The exhibition also recreates Nelson’s largely emptied studio, alongside a locked bedroom where visitors can imagine escape through travel books. A rickety mining shaft connects the spaces to a cinema foyer with doors that lead nowhere, while skull and conch-shell forms evoke isolation on a desert island. The exhibition runs from 3 October to 11 April.
- Mike Nelson revisits his 2004 desert shack installation.
- The new show reflects on despair and hopes for escape.
- Modern Art Oxford hosts the exhibition from 3 October to 11 April.
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Mike Nelson is a contemporary artist who created an installation at Modern Art Oxford in 2004 that drew on desert island imagery and reflected his hopes for art's role in bringing about change. The work marked a significant moment in his artistic trajectory.
Nelson is now revisiting this installation in a new exhibition at the same venue, but with a substantially different mood. Where the 2004 version expressed optimism, the new work suggests that political and social conditions have worsened, conveying despair rather than hope.
The exhibition includes a reimagined desert shack, an emptied studio space, and symbolic elements that evoke isolation. Connected by pathways including a bedroom lined with travel books, these spaces create an atmosphere quite different from Nelson's original installation.
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Originally published by The Guardian as “Mike Nelson review – a waking nightmare of derelict dunes and desert island despair”.