Island of Ruins: The Cracked Landscape of Hashima

Barbara Kita

basiakita@wp.pl
University of Silesia (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3616-9863

Abstract

The premise of the text is to look at Hashima as an island that generates a double crack. It is both a crack in the seascape and an imperfection which the island-ruin constitutes in itself. The reflection takes into account historical conditions of the island, the time of its development, and the contemporaneity of the city of ruins. Abandonment of huge buildings and “orphaned” everyday objects, as well as rapid displacement of the island’s inhabitants, condemned the place to disappearance. This is countered by creative activities in which artists try to call for Hashima’s past and present, using the ruins as part of the discourse of memory, trace, disappearance, and re-presentation of former inhabitants. Accumulated images, tropes actualized by artists and perpetuated in media clearly indicate the need to deal with this space of emptiness, ruins, and specific embalming of bygone times.


Keywords:

landscape, Hashima, ruins, installations, documentary, memory

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Published
2021-08-17

Cited by

Kita, B. (2021) “Island of Ruins: The Cracked Landscape of Hashima”, Kwartalnik Filmowy, (114), pp. 126–144. doi: 10.36744/kf.764.

Authors

Barbara Kita 
basiakita@wp.pl
University of Silesia Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3616-9863

Associate Professor, Ph.D., cultural scientist and film expert working at the Institute of Cultural Studies at the University of Silesia. Her academic interests focus on the theory of film and new media (particularly of French provenience), as well as on the issues of image, space, and urbanization. She wrote the book Między przestrzeniami. O kulturze nowych mediów [Between Spaces: The Culture of New Media] (2003) and Obraz zatrzymany. Praktyka i teoria późnego Godarda [Arrested Image: The Theory and Practice of Late Godard] (2013). She is the editor of Przestrzenie tożsamości we współczesnym kinie europejskim [Spaces of Identity in Contemporary European Cinema] (2006) and the co-editor (together with Andrzej Gwóźdź) of the publication Pamięć kina [Memory of Cinema] (2013). Moreover, she co-edited (with Magdalena Kempna-Pieniążek) the books Filmowe pejzaże Europy [Film Landscapes of Europe] (2017) and Filmowe pejzaże Ameryk [Film Landscapes of the Americas] (2020), as well as (with Ilona Copik) Kultury obrazu – tabu – edukacja [Image Cultures – Taboo – Education] (2018). She is also a member of the Polish Society for Film and Media Studies.

 



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