In 1831 an underwater volcanic eruption created a temporary island between Sicily and Tunisia. Britain, France, Spain and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies quickly became interested in claiming it. Then the island disappeared beneath the Mediterranean again.
Elisa Giardina Papa turns this strange historical episode into She Flickered In and Out of History, a new 18-minute video installation currently at London’s ICA until 6 September 2026.
The work was filmed around Mount Etna, Stromboli and the submerged slopes of Mediterranean volcanic islands. It appears on a large freestanding LED screen alongside photographs and glass sculptures. A Sicilian spoken poem and an original score by duendita move through the images.
What interests me is that the island behaves almost like an impossible political object.
A territory normally becomes valuable because it stays where maps put it.
This one appeared, attracted competing claims of ownership, and then physically removed itself from the argument.
Video seems particularly suited to that story because moving image also refuses the stability of a photograph. Land emerges, changes, flickers and disappears.
Giardina Papa does not simply reconstruct the island as a forgotten historical curiosity. She lets geological time interfere with political time.
Governments can draw borders rapidly.
A volcano has another schedule.
There is something satisfying about a landscape that briefly enters European geopolitics and then sinks before anybody can permanently possess it.
