Alex Hartley (born 1963) is a British artist whose work addresses complicated and sometimes contradictory attitudes toward built environments and landscapes.
In 2004, whilst participating in a Cape Farewell Arctic expedition, Hartley discovered Nyskjæret, an island about the size of a football field, in the archipelago of Svalbard, a Norwegian territory in the Arctic Ocean.
The island had been revealed from within the melting ice of a retreating glacier and Hartley was the first human to stand on it.
He originally called it Nymark (meaning 'new land') and the Norwegian Polar Institute has since recognised the island as Nyskjæret and included it on all maps and charts subsequent to its discovery.
As part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, the new nation of Nowhereisland, a floating island, made the journey from the Arctic to Weymouth on the Jurassic Coast and on to Bristol.