I located imagery of the oft cited despised guards with dogs that had been called in to protect non-union labour 10 years ago. I projected a drawing based on this subject onto the cardboard hulls along with tracings of the old rowboat picture and the phrase ‘chasing non-unionists down the river.’ I used two cardboard boxes to cover the overhead projectors, this strategy worked well as many viewers were puzzled as to from where the images were being projected. Flattened cardboard boxes were an appropriate material in which to construct the hulls as it referenced the goods loaded and unloaded at the docks.
This piece was titled ‘Row’, the dual meaning of the word suiting the objects and the subject matter. In order to row effectively everyone in a boat needs to be finely tuned to the others in a cooperative effort. Lending itself to associations with adages such as ‘don’t rock the boat,’ and the nursery rhyme ‘row row row your boat, gently down the stream, merrily merrily merrily merrily, life is but a dream.’ The nursery lyrics have often been used as a metaphor for life’s difficult choices, and the boat can be viewed as referring to one’s self or a group to which one belongs.
As an imagined work it would be a group of three boat hulls, one upturned, projected onto from the wall above using animated images and sound. The images would combine existing footage and reenactments to navigate the ‘Us versus Them’ mindsets towards an impossible resolution. The concept of ‘white noise’ comes to mind in terms of the effect I would like to engender, being at times stormy, then calm. A sound recording would provide a counterfactual history where out of the white noise the nursery rhyme surfaces being sung in unison then rounds by adult voices.
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