Description
The catalogue and onboard record of Lone Twin’s ambitious participatory art project commissioned for the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad; conceived of and directed by Lone Twin’s Artistic Directors Gary Winters and Gregg Whelan and built by a fearlessly adventurous team of boat builders and volunteers.
The proposal was to build a boat out of pieces of wood donated by local people in South-East England. During the first half of 2011, over 1,200 wooden items were collected, as well as the story the donors told about each object’s history and significance. Donations and narratives became part of the fabric of the boat, which was launched in Emsworth, Sussex, in May 2012, before a celebratory summer voyage and a legacy period as a public resource.
The book documents the project from its beginnings in earlier work by Lone Twin’s Gary Winters and Gregg Whelan, through to the maiden voyage. Drawing on interviews with the artists, the designer Simon Rogers and the build manager, former Olympic and America’s Cup yachtsman Mark Covell, it describes an extraordinary design and build process which made it possible for companions as unlikely as a Shanghai tea chest and a shaving from a Jimi Hendrix guitar to be integrated into the structure of the boat above and below deck.
Introductory essays by David Williams also consider some of the broader cultural implications of the materials used in a floating archive of anecdote and personal remembrance celebrating a region’s histories, lives and relations with the sea.
Combining contemporary art and design, engineering and craftsmanship,The Lone Twin Boat Project interweaves and explores diverse areas of expertise, conceptions of art, and modes of creativity and collaboration.
Chiquita Books, 2012. 256 pages, 28cm x 19cm. Paperback with colour images throughout.
ISBN: 978-0956759221
