Buried Treasure Island

A sign altered to read "Matta-Clark Park" on Treasure Island as evidenced by the (old) Bay Bridge in the background.

Buried Treasure Island is a multi-platform investigation conducted by BARGE for Ground Scores, curated by Valerie Imus for Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ Bay Area Now 5, on display in San Francisco from July 20 – October 18, 2008.

Given Treasure Island’s long and complex history as an artificial staging ground for world’s fairs, military bases, television shoots, and real estate speculation, as well as being an enormous landfill of dangerous and toxic substances, Buried Treasure Island attempts to unearth the secret histories of the site, and explore how the landscape is transformed not only by its usage, but also by what is elided from public view. Home to some of the most stunning views in the bay (but only if you turn your back on the island itself), Treasure Island remains a site full of hidden histories, presents, and possible futures.

This work is presented in several overlapping iterations: installation, guidebook, self-guided tour, audio podcast, songs, performative bus tour, staged actions and photographs, and here on this site. That some possible Treasure Island “itself” may be buried somewhere within the constellation of these versionings, between site and non-site, realities and representations, is a question that the work attempts to confront.