31°47′40″N · 81°6′44″W · Georgia Sea Islands · 26,000 Acres · No Bridge · No Causeway
OSSABAW
The island that made artists. The island that kept them.
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// the island //
One of Georgia's Last
Unbroken Places
Ossabaw Island sits twenty miles by water south of Savannah. 26,000 acres. No bridge. No causeway. Access by permit only. The third-largest barrier island off the Georgia coast, it contains 9,000 acres of wooded upland, 16,000 acres of marshland, and a human record extending four thousand years — from the Guale people through the Spanish missions through the English colonial period through the plantation era to the 1961 founding of the Ossabaw Island Project by Eleanor Torrey West.
The Project brought composers, writers, sculptors, scientists. Aaron Copland. Samuel Barber. Ralph Ellison. Annie Dillard. Margaret Atwood. Olive Ann Burns. Harry Bertoia. Eugene Odum. The island was the instrument. These were the players. What they made here was shaped by this specific place in ways the work itself records.
In 1978 the island was sold to the State of Georgia as a Heritage Preserve — protected permanently from resort development. It is managed today by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources in partnership with the Ossabaw Island Foundation. The island is accessible to groups engaged in study, research, and education.
// photography & painting //
Work Made on the Island
The images below were made on Ossabaw Island by John Gholson during a UGA residency visit. Film photography and oil paintings on canvas, made in the field from direct observation. These are the anchor works of this archive.
// the island in numbers //
Georgia Barrier Island
Presence on the Island
Founded by Eleanor West
Heritage Preserve
// compass galleries //
Explore by Direction
The island is approached from all sides. The compass galleries collect works made from each orientation — the island as it presents itself facing north, east, south, west, and all points between.
// the island as idea //
