Empire’s Island is a reconstruction of Ascension Island that takes the form of a video study and a detailed double model of the island. Staal uses the peculiar history and current use of Ascension Island to show how imperial power ignores the existing values of a place, and models and island to serve imperialism. From the Dutch empire, that used the island to exile crew members of the East India Company (VOC), to the British empire that sent Charles Darwin to greenify (geoengineer) the island, and lastly the contemporary US empire that together with the British established massive military and planetary surveillance infrastructure on Ascension. 

For Empire’s Island, I conducted the archival research and coordinated the production. Staal won the Prix de Rome with Empire’s Island.