2018 - Present
28 x 24 x 10 feet
Siren Island Curatorial Statement
What might the embodied experience be of a place untainted by patriarchy? This question inspired Siren Island, an interactive marine structure and performance series. Drawing on speculative and material strategies, the project invokes the ancient myth of the Sirens to explore themes of desire, the untamable feminine body, and the liberatory act of un-civilizing. Existing as a sovereign space apart from land and its attendant systems of power, Siren Island imagines a location where bodies can detox, find relief from oppression, and reconnect with primal states of being.
Siren Island is a platform for re-contextualizing mythology. Designed to mimic an undulating rock rising from the sea, this floating, immersive structure is launched and anchored at various locations, inviting discovery. To reach it, the audience must venture into the water, leaving behind the possessions and technologies that tether them to the land. The approach becomes a ritual quest, a feral baptism that immerses the body into a state of restorative animality. Across cultures, the ocean is often seen as a realm of chaos—a primordial space home to serpents, leviathans, and deep mysteries. Submerging oneself en route to Siren Island invokes a return to an embryonic state, a time before societal constraints shaped desire.
As the central figure in Siren Island, Sirens are featured throughout the performances and serve as a pivotal reference point. Sirens are simultaneously beings and a metaphorical place, a border of the possible, a threshold that dissolves constructs . They embody hybridity—a mix of bird and human—that destabilizes categories, challenging the structures of identity and order. Their exposed, animalistic form strips away civility, revealing the untamed feminine sublime. The Siren is a figure of polymorphic perversion, offering an escapist fantasy of unbounded wilderness and freedom.
Project History
First launched in July 2018, Siren Island was conceived and designed by Serena JV Elston and constructed with the help of a team of seven fabricators. Functioning as both a movable landmass and a plinth-like performance stage, the structure has hosted four major activations
between 2018 and 2021. Each activation, lasting from two to ten days, featured around 150 participating artists and an array of public programs. These included absurdist spa-like experiences such as “Bath in the Blood of Your Vanquished Enemies” and “Preferential Treatment,” where participants were whipped with roses by naked performers while they screamed, blurring the line between spectacle and ritual.
The first activation, Drowning Woman (2018), was an original play written by Serena JV Elston and Simone Lion that depicted capitalism as a mythic curse of eternal damnation. In 2019, Landlubbers followed as a participatory performance engaging audiences in preparations for global climate disaster. The third activation, Plague (2020), was based on a script by Elston and Lion, examining humanity’s hubris in celebrating amidst a pandemic.
The final activation, Circe: Twilight of a Goddess (2021), written and directed by Max Brumberg Kraus, centered on the mythic witch Circe of Aeaea, a sanctuary for exiled women and nymphs. Worn down by her immortality, Circe attempts to cast the ultimate spell: transforming an immortal into a mortal. This poignant narrative, created in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, served as a meditation on mortality, societal reckoning, and the passage of time, resonating deeply with the collective grief and existential questions of the era.
ET OLEUM AD INFLUUNT
From the Latin, “The Oil Will Flow,” Siren Island motto
Photographer Masha Mitkov & Carter Grimes