From next Monday, 27-year-old art student Miriam Wiskemann will be the sole custodian of an uninhabited island off the coast of Sweden. The tiny island of Marsten, just 180 metres by 50 metres, is a popular destination for kayakers and paddle boarders during the summer months but for much of the year, it’s the exclusive domain of a colony of cormorants.
The one catch is that Miriam will have to give her title up in June 2027. She is one of a few lucky winners of a competition set up by Visit Sweden. Visit Sweden’s website explains the aim of the initiative was to show that “true luxury isn’t about excess, but rather about time, space and balance”.
Miriam and four other people from around the world will receive a year-long right-of-use agreement and a travel voucher for 20,000 Swedish krona – around £1,590. The prize does not include permanent residence, there are no buildings on the island.
Miriam, who is studying for a degree in art, plans to spend a little time on Marsten in September, gathering inspiration for the final creative project for her degree in illustration. She says: “The main prize is actually the journey there.”
Miriam, from Dusseldorf in Germany, is studying at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design. She says she hopes to eventually study for a master’s degree in Swedish capital city Stockholm.
The art student, who has actually lived in Sweden for a year, told German news agency dpa: “Sweden just has a more relaxed pace of life that I’ve often found myself missing in Germany. This trip is all I’m going to be thinking about for the rest of this term.
“I’ll take time to cycle around the island and draw a lot of inspiration from my surroundings,” she said. “Having this luxury of being able to travel there will definitely have a big influence on me.”
“The Swedish nature and the stark differences of the seasons have always really inspired me and my art,” she added.
Marsten is part of a small group of islands that lie around four miles off Sweden’s west coast. There are more than 267,000 islands scattered around the Swedish coast, and one of the main aims of the competition was to raise awareness of them.
VisitSweden’s “Your Swedish Island” campaign attracted almost 2,500 applications from 100 countries. The other winners come from Canada, the US, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Each of them will be the custodian of their own secluded island for the next 12 months.