Abstract
A year after the Brexit referendum on 23 June 2016, Mat Collishaw's installation Albion (2017) offered a critical reflection on national identity and symbolism in English culture. The title refers to a mythical, fantasised and nostalgic nation which is embodied in the portrait of the Major Oak, a remarkable, thousand-year-old tree of the Sherwood Forest. Invoking both the conservative figure of the Royal Oak and the Major Oak, also known as Robin Hood's Oak, the English artist conjured up the fascinating ghost of an historical, politically ambivalent national symbol by using illusion devices. Albion is a reflexive, spectacular work that both relies on and questions the persisting power of fascination of national symbolism.
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