According to UNESCO’s 2010 mapping for the Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, 250 languages have disappeared in the last fifty years, with a further 3,000 currently in danger. Languages are disappearing at an unprecedented rate in human history. When a language dies, it takes with it a specific understanding of the environment it has named for centuries, including plants, animals, diseases and religion. Along with a language, a worldview disappears forever.

Yonaguni is a small piece of land that has emerged from the sea, located far from anywhere and battered by the strongest Pacific Ocean currents. No more than a thousand people live on the island, few of whom still speak Dunan. Dunan is a severely endangered language: in a few years, it will no longer exist and will be definitively forgotten. With the language, the entire Yonaguni universe is dissolving. There is no work on the island, no high schools and no future; families are leaving and the elderly are dying. L’Isola aims to capture the last images and sounds of a fading community.

“L’Isola” is a project by Anush Hamzehian and Vittorio Mortarotti consisting of a sound installation and a multi-channel audio-visual installation, as well as the publication of two volumes: the art book L’Isola and the Dunan–English dictionary.

The project is sponsored by Fondazione Palazzo Magnani and supported by the Italian Cultural Institute in Tokyo and Ca’ Foscari University in Venice.