Fantasy Island shows Ireland from 70 photographers’ alternative perspectives

The concept of Fantasy Island, published by Rotten Books, sounds simple and quaint – 50 years of Irish photography by 70 Irish artists – while the final product is anything but. Flicking through this book is like riding a screwball carousel, a kaleidoscopic history book that offers everything from black-and-white film photographs of punk movements, queer intimacy and nightlife, to ambient scenes that play with light, colour and shape. Attempting to encapsulate this sprawling project, Belfast-based Joel Seawright, fine artist and founder of Rotten Books, and graphic designer Lucy Jackson, lift the lid on how the book came together.

“The goal was to create something that felt truly representative of Ireland as seen through the eyes and experiences of people who live here,” says Joel. Deciding to pause their previous project, the stylish Rotten Magazine, to focus on something more expansive, the main focus was authenticity. That meant collaborating with Irish artists who don’t just have lived experience in Ireland but also shot Ireland in all of its beauty, grit, tension and humour. “We avoided the stereotypical portrayals of Ireland that often appear in wider media,” says Joel. “Fantasy Island doesn’t attempt to tell a single, linear story of Irish history,” adds Lucy. “Instead, it acknowledges how layered, emotional, and unresolved that history is.”

With images starting in 1975, naturally The Troubles surfaces, but Fantasy Island diverts from the trauma-dumping of cliche-laden media surrounding Ireland. Making sure that violence and resilience have their moments, the book also humanises the country with creativity, culture and colour. “Rather than centring the conflict, we tried to let it sit alongside other narratives,” says Lucy. “Making space for the complexities that often get flattened in mainstream portrayals.”

The front cover of Fantasy Island always gets a reaction from anyone you show it to – an evocative school book design with a drawing that appears to have been drawn in pencil and partially erased. “That sense of mystery inspired us; we wanted it to feel like an old book that you’ve found in the back corner of a library, not quite sure what it is until you’ve dusted it off,” says Joel. The ink lines that go over the faint drawing creates the idea that Fantasy Island is a rewriting of history, a new illustration over the top of the old one, recreating our ideas of Ireland and challenging preconceptions.

“Elliott Smith’s song Strung Out Again, which gave us the title, was a big influence,” says Lucy. “That lyric about ‘standing, smiling on some fantasy island’ really captured the tone we were looking for: reflective, surreal, and slightly dislocated.” Fantasy Island additionally relies on the immediate imagery of dream worlds and magic as seen in media, such as the television film series of the same name, where a wish-fulfilling island and its hosts make fantasies come to life. Fantasy Island does an amazing job of treading the line between the imperial truths of sexuality, poverty, political violence, fashion and the imaginative truths of blurred vignettes, shadows on a window, a discarded sculpture of Jesus.

But why the transition from magazine to book? “There’s a permanence to books. I hate to be that guy, but Instagram is so bad for photography these days. Images just fall into the void and disappear,” says Joel. “With Fantasy Island, we wanted to create something that could sit on a shelf for years and still feel relevant.” The fixity of Fantasy Island also lends itself to becoming a magical object in of itself, holding the secrets of the world. The viewer is taken through a journey of evaluating civilization’s pros and cons, as repeated instances of animals caught in man-made structures appear just pages after images of pub communities, political action and scenes of embrace. One particular photo shows two figures watching a blaze, its violence softly out of focus. It is unclear whether or not the fire is an accident, an act of terrorism, a bonfire, a celebration. This is where viewers insert their own fantasies and interpretations into the island of Ireland. The book does not just hold these photographer’s histories, it has its own history too – imagined or lived.