Beyond the Blank Canvas: Lone Twin’s The Boat Project

Abstract

This article examines Lone Twin’s The Boat Project (funded through the Olympiad’s Artists Taking the Lead scheme), which built a racing yacht from donated wood and gathered stories – both poignant and banal – of the donations along the way. Emphasizing the work’s focus on participation, the article argues that The Boat Project unsettles some of the official Games discourse around achievement and value, most notably in its celebration of the mundane as well as the extraordinary.

Notes

1. Arts Council England, Artists Taking the Lead: A Manual for Artist Advisor Panels (London: Arts Council of England, 2009), p. 6.

2. Ibid.

3. The Lone Twin Boat Project, ed. by David Williams (Devon: Chiquita Books, 2012).

4. See Carl Lavery’s preface to Carl Lavery and David Williams, ‘Practising Participation: A Conversation with Lone Twin’, Performance Research, 16.4 (2011), 7–14 (p. 7).

5. Claire Bishop, Artificial Hells (London: Verso, 2012), p. 5.

6. However, Mark Covell, the build manager, asserts that the differences were very important to him: ‘Before you put a saw through a piece of timber, you need to know that, for example, some troops died on the deck of that ship in Dunkirk; and you have to think about them.’ Williams, The Lone Twin Boat Project, p. 42.

7. Bishop, Artificial Hells, p. 3.

8. A by-product of this process is waste. To address the potential environmental criticisms that might thus be levelled at the project, Lone Twin had the sawdust created during the build process turned into bookmarks bearing the legend ‘I am a boat’. The text on the reverse of the bookmark informs the holder that it ‘contains fragments of 1221 wooden objects. […] You are holding between your fingers boxwood planted in 1166, a Bedouin tent peg, the Mary Rose and the Victory, Enid Gaddy’s sideboard door, a whaling station, 13 walking sticks, the floor of a royal palace, Carol Terry’s plant stand, an IKEA kitchen shelf, […].’

9. In an interview with the Guardian; quoted in Williams, The Lone Twin Boat Project, p. 232.

10. The other three criteria were that they must be ‘original ideas in any art form, led by artists’, must be inspired by their location, and, though completed by June 2012, must offer a legacy beyond this. Arts Council England, Artists Taking the Lead, p. 6.

11. In his speech to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), in the culmination of London’s bid to hold the Games (Singapore, 6 July 2005), Sebastian Coe asserted: ‘Choose London today and you send a clear message to the youth of the world: more than ever, the Olympic Games are for you.’ The presentation speeches were published in full on the official London 2012 website: London 2012, <https://www.london2012.com> [accessed 16 April 2013], no longer available. This quotation can be found in the government document: Department of Culture, Media and Sport, ‘Beyond 2012: The London 2012 Legacy Story’, Gov.uk, <https://www.gov.uk/government/publications> [accessed 17 July 2013].

12. In interview with Carl Lavery and David Williams, ‘Practising Participation’, p. 10.

13. This phrase formed part of Sebastian Coe’s speech in the presentations to the IOC in Singapore, 6 July 2005. For access details see note 11.

14. Quoted in Williams, The Lone Twin Boat Project, p. 120.

15. David Gribble draws on this rhetoric in his summary of the Olympic Games as ‘an international showcase of national achievement’. David Gribble, ‘Gold, Silver and Bronze: The Ancient Olympics’, History Today, 62 (August 2012), 18–23. In the 2012 Cultural Olympiad evaluation report, the words ‘showcase’ and ‘showcasing’ appear forty-four times and ‘achievement’ thirty-five times. Beatriz Garcia, ‘London 2012 Cultural Olympiad Evaluation Final Report’, Liverpool: Institute of Cultural Capital, 25 April 2013, available at Arts Council England, <http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/media/uploads/pdf/london_2012_academic_report/London_2012_Cultural_Olympiad_Evaluation_ICC.pdf#sthash.s9BbYck0.dpuf> [accessed 10 July 2013]. The Artists Taking the Lead manual notes that, ‘just as London 2012 will celebrate the achievements of the world’s greatest sportspeople, the Cultural Olympiad will celebrate the best in culture and creativity from around the UK and all over the world’. Arts Council England, Artists Taking the Lead, p. 4. It goes on to state that its commissions are intended to ‘showcase the best of our nation’s creativity’. Ibid., p. 6.

16. Alexander C. Y. Huang, ‘“What Country, Friends, Is This?”: Touring Shakespeares, Agency, and Efficacy in Theatre Historiography’, Theatre Survey, 54 (January 2013), 51–85 (p. 60).

17. Arts Council England, ‘Arts Taking the Lead: South East’, Arts Council England, <https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/funding/funded-projects/case-studies/artists-taking-lead-south-east/> [accessed 16 April 2013].

18. Williams, The Lone Twin Boat Project, p. 21.

19. For example, in donation 234, a wooden aardvark: ‘It’s probably the only thing I’ve ever made out of wood. It’s a failure, as you can see’; quoted in ibid., p. 91.

20. ‘It’s surplus to requirements’ (donation 759), ibid., p. 159; ‘it’s not very airtight so it’s not really very good!’ (donation 587), ibid., p. 137.

21. ‘I’m not sure what this is’ (donation 81), ibid., p.73.

22. ‘The other bit needs to be painted but we ran out of time to do it’ (donation 752), ibid., p. 158.

23. At the time of writing, Collective Spirit has sailed to France to be exhibited at a cultural event. See Lone Twin, The Boat Project, <https://www.theboatproject.com> [accessed 23 April 2013].

24. Williams, The Lone Twin Boat Project, pp. 15, 17, 41, and 42.

25. Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (London: Verso, 1993), p. 4; Norma Thompson, Ship of State: Statecraft and Politics from Ancient Greece to Democratic America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 172.

26. The term ‘social sculpture’ emerges from the practice of artist Joseph Beuys, and has been taken up in discourses of participatory art.

27. Quoted in Lavery and Williams, ‘Practising Participation’, p. 14.

28. Foreword in Williams, The Lone Twin Boat Project, p. 11.

29. Williams, The Lone Twin Boat Project, p.11.

30. The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games was responsible for planning and delivering the Games.