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An artist and his team are returning to the UK with part of an Arctic island for a £500,000 Olympics art project.

Alex Hartley and 18 volunteers excavated about six tonnes of material from an island exposed by a glacier on the Svalbard peninsula in Norway.

The material, which was loaded on a schooner sailing vessel, will be sculpted into a piece of art called Nowhere Island.

It will be floated along the South West coast for the 2012 Cultural Olympiad.

It is one of 12 arts projects chosen nationally to represent each of the UK regions as part of the Cultural Olympiad to run alongside the sporting events in 2012.

The island will be in Weymouth for the Olympic sailing.

More than 2,000 people have signed up as "citizens of Nowhereisland" , although no-one will be allowed on it.

Nowhereisland will have a land support vehicle, or embassy, travelling with it, providing information about the project.

Nowhereisland will visit these locations during summer 2012, depending on the weather: Weymouth (25 July-3 August), Exmouth (4-7 August), Plymouth (9-12 August), Mevagissey (14-17 August), south Cornwall coast (19-22 August), Newquay (23-27 August), north Cornwall coast (28-31 August), Ilfracombe (1-4 September), Bristol (7-9 September).