Seaworthy Vessel
Seaworthy Vessel takes the concept of seaworthiness in ships as a metaphor for emotional resilience in people. The project will culminate in an installation of 1000 origami boats and a companion book. This project was funded by an Emergence Bursary from a-n The Artists Information Company, Shape Arts and Disability Arts Online. I travelled to Oslo to undertake artistic research and was due to present the project at the Tate Exchange in March 2020 until the event was delayed due to COVID19.
“I once saw a row of large anchors in a scrapyard from the window of a train. For the rest of the journey I couldn’t stop thinking about these anchors and the ships they came from. The parts of a ship wind up in a scrapyard because the ship they once made up has been deemed unseaworthy. The question came to mind was this, what would happen if we applied the idea of seaworthiness to people? Who would pass the test?
During WWII my Great Grandad (Grandad Billy as he was known to me) was in the Merchant Navy, he was involved in an accident that badly injured both his hands and left him unable to work for three years. His discharge papers read ‘Unfit for seafaring’. Was he seaworthy? In 2015 I had just graduated from my MA when I had a string of MS relapses that badly affected my hands and eyes. I had always defined myself through my artistic practice and my illness meant I couldn’t work for a really long time. Was I seaworthy?
When Grandad Billy was learning to use his hands again after his accident he learnt to knit and made dozens of pairs of slippers for his children that took on almost legendary status in my family history. My Grandma still has the pattern for them somewhere.
I’ve left out an important part of this story which is that Grandad Billy was a talented painter, offered a place at art school that was impossible for him to take up. He was also an excellent storyteller, with the kind of fascinating life that could have easily filled a book. He told me stories involving actual spies. I spent seven years on art courses, I am an objectively rubbish painter. At the time of writing I’ve had no encounters with spies.
The idea to fold a huge number of origami boats came from this story, from the hope that a similar repetitive endeavour would help me regain control over, and confidence in, my hands. I think it was also because he died when I was 16, and I didn’t ask him enough questions, so I went on this artistic quest to understand his life instead.
I went to Oslo, Norway to try and understand what it meant to my Grandad Billy, it was the only place from his Merchant Navy days he ever wanted to go back to. While I was there, I learnt a lot about all kinds of boats. The thing that really struck me was the Viking Long Ships I saw. I couldn’t get over them – because they were beautiful and easily the oldest thing I’ve ever stood in front of and just seemed so small in comparison with the sea.
They looked so fragile compared to even the most basic of modern ships, like the ferry I took to visit the museum. But they worked, didn’t they? Vikings sailed their boats as far as North America, far enough for peacocks to end up as grave goods in Oslo. Those boats were strong enough to get people where they wanted to go. I wrote about this in more detail in this project’s companion book Some Days I am The Sea. My experiences in Norway changed the tone of the project, from one that wonders if people are seaworthy to one that asserts that we are.”
Seaworthy Vessel, due to finish in November 2020, is a striking installation of 1000 origami boats folded from paper printed with selected personal writings. The texts are taken from Grandad Billy’s journals and my own diaries during the MS relapses that affected my hands.