20K Want to Become Citizens of Nowhereisland

Art project lets people dream of life on new nation-state
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 6, 2012 10:27 AM CDT
20K Want to Become Citizens of Nowhereisland
An Arctic island traveled south during the summer of 2012.   (nowhereisland2012)

Nowhereisland is pretty much what it sounds like: A scrap of land (just 144 feet long) that calls nowhere in particular home. That's because the landmass is actually a sort of art project, one dreamed up by Brit Alex Hartley, who stumbled upon an island that had yet to be mapped in 2004. He asked the Norwegian government if he could haul it south, where it's currently taking a trip around the southwest coast of England.

"The aim is to encourage people to think about what it would be like to start up a completely new nation," Hartley tells the Telegraph, "to get them to make proposals for what life should be like on Nowhereisland, what the constitution should consist of, and so on." And that's exactly what many are doing. Some 20,800 people have made a request to be granted citizenship of Nowhereisland; they can then go on to suggest measures the nation should pass. Among the more inspired: a ban on telemarketers, a free after-work drink, no shopping one day a week, and a currency based not on money, but stories. Click for more on the island, which also claims 52 "resident thinkers"—including Yoko Ono. (More art stories.)

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