Simon Faithfull, whose work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, was granted permission to sink his boat off the Isle of Portland. The small fishing vessel was towed out to sea and set alight. As the fire burned, the boat slowly sank to the seabed where it will begin its new life, gradual transforming into an artificial reef.
Onboard cameras live-streamed the sinking through a dedicated app and will continue to relay images of the defunct vessel’s slow metamorphosis from its final resting place into a new underwater ecosystem. The cameras will remain transmitting for a year, with the images relayed to exhibitions in Brighton, Calais and Caen.
Simon Told The Independent:
“Rather poignantly it took longer for the boat to sink that we thought. Now it is beginning the slow journey of becoming a reef, a whole ecosystem will grow around the vessel soon. We’ll see plants starting to grow and fish swimming through the apertures. Something which was part of our world until today has now entered a different realm and is starting a new life. The whole process will take years.”
It might seem wasteful to sink a ship for the sake of art, but the project happened in collaboration with Wreck to Reef, a not-for-profit organization seeking to regenerate an area of the seabed near the Isle of Portland, UK.
