SALVAGENTI I & II

2012

Lifejackets, LED torches.3,50x10m

 

 

The following is an installation produced in collaboration with the artist Riza Manalo, who participated in the study tour. In the basement we found hundreds of packaged lifejackets, and decided to utilize them as sole elements in an installation, located on the floor of the wedding room of the ship. On every lifejacket was attached a LED torch for signalling, and this allowed us to not only play with the texture and colour of the lifejacket, but also with light: we laid the jackets on the floor, starting from the beginning of the wedding area, up until the table where the newlyweds take their vows.The lifejackets, with their torches lit, become a ghostlike presence, and relate to an absence; the lifejacket itself can imply the soul lost at sea; the procession of red jackets can figure as a procession of the dead, but also as a lit up runway, or carpet, to the altar, and suddenly relate to life, more than it’s opposite. The empty jacket implies the individual that may have worn it; the installation isn’t merely scupltural, but produces presence, or better, a mutitude of presences. The lights signify remembrance, hope, memory or guidance.

 

 

1) Salvagenti I&II was located in one of the main passenger rooms of the MS Maltepe, a disused Bosphorus ferryboat. 2) Detail of Salvagenti I. 3) Salvagenti II, on the ship deck.