Meta Haven Research Group: Sealand Identity Project

Meta Haven Research Group presented its ongoing Sealand Identity Project.

The Jan van Eyck design research project Meta Haven centered on subjects including national and territorial identity, iconography, politics and history. Rather than intervening directly in the practicalities of visual communication, Meta Haven creates models and possible futures for design. In this approach, writing essays and setting up conferences is as important as actual proposals. The Sealand Identity Project began with the branding of the Principality of Sealand, a self-proclaimed mini-state on an artificial island in the North Sea near the United Kingdom. Sealand aspires not only to be the smallest sovereign country on earth, but to be known as an internet “data haven” for business and pleasure. The mini-state, which Meta Haven has dubbed the “mainport to imagination”, is an experimental nation where notions of identity, political theory, network society and utopia collide.

Meta Haven consists of Tina Clausmeyer, Vinca Kruk, Adriaan Mellegers (researchers at the design department of the Jan van Eyck Academie) and Daniel van der Velden (advising researcher at the design department and initiator of the Sealand Identity Project).
www.metahaven.net