Projects » Boston Buoys
Boston Buoys 2021
Boston, Lincolnshire
Commissioner: Transported
Fabricator: Craven & Nicholas Ltd
Photo credit: Electric Egg
See both sculptures on Art UK, the nation's public sculpture online.
The sculptures re-purpose navigation buoys in a new and fresh way. Each of the buoys is unique and has its own map in the marks, the layers of paint, the fragments of painted text and structural additions.
The buoys are relics of the sea, they each have a story to tell. The steel sculptures 'Flotsam' and 'Lagan' are a cradle of seaweed around the buoys, they incorporate micro stories gathered from the local community that tell of significant journeys of both the body and heart. The sculptures are palimpsests for this exchange of stories, the term palimpsest is also used in architecture, archaeology, and geomorphology to denote an object made or worked upon for one purpose and later reused for another.
Boston has a long history of connection with the sea and other countries, as part of the Hanseatic league it traded with the Baltic was a port for many exotic goods from around the world. Contemporary Boston also has a large population of people from these same parts of Europe and is today a functioning port. The buoys are a strong symbol of the maritime heritage of Boston.
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