Design: Having no prior experience in boat and raft building, I looked at previous working designs, such as Thor Heyerdahl’s Kontiki and Ra expeditions. I calculated the flotation required for the calculated weight. However, some of my initial ideas - using 2 lt bottles but a lot of them had to be abandoned and replaced by recycled soap containers. I had hoped to have messages in the bottles if possible by a public project, but this was also not possible in the timescale.
My interest in the impact of climate change and how it is a cultural issue, was sparked by David Buckland’s Cape Farewell lecture at Wimbledon. Suddenly there was a different way of understanding. The Raft project, as part of a larger exhibition was a chance to work through some of these ideas, and see how this metaphor of escape and survival could work.
The Blue Sail of Hans Haacke was dramatic in its simplicity and intensity, and caught the imagination. I thought also of Theseus and his ill fated return after killing the minotaur and he had not taken down the black sails and unfurled the white to show that all was well.
Thomas Hirschhorn’s In between: a vision of destruction but creation. It recycles old materials, and this became a principle of the project.
I was excited in particular by the 90 ton Ark created out of advertising bill boards by Mark Bradford after hurricane Katrina had destroyed much ofNew Orleans. This, surely was how the drowned coastline would be if sea levels rose.Also this ark was astonishing in size, and at a certain level, my raft would becertainly the biggest thing I had made, and the biggest object in the space. It felt good to go large!
