In Istanbul, in 2012, a group of art students from Sabanci University and I cast in concrete a 27-foot, 9-ton hull, using an abandoned wooden boat found by the Bosporus as a mold. The life history of an anonymous object identifiable only as having been a working vessel, became embedded in a new form. (Process Documentation)
The full title of the project is a pastiche:
Openings to the water I stopped searched for cracks
and the wanting parts I fixed
A boat sold by the daughter of its builder, a fisherman,
to a shipwright who left it there
The first two lines are from, The Why and Wherefore of the Christening of Ships (Robert G. Skerrett, in The Rudder,1919), citing Pere Scheil’s translation of the flood story in Gilgamesh (Tablet XI). The third and fourth lines are all that is known about the thing that began the project.
Concrete, steel, wooden fishing boat remnants Approximately 8 x 7 x 27 feet Protocinema, Istanbul, Turkey September 14–October 20, 2012
(Press Release & Press)
We worked in a garage/studio from June to August 2012:
For extensive photo documentation of the process of building Openings to the water… see:
PHASE ONE: ORIGINAL BOAT PREP AND MOVING
PHASE THREE: MOVING AND DISPLAY
PHASE FOUR: FINAL LOCATION