Escape Strategy One: The Raft
2009
Video Documentation of performance, hand-built raft, oar, life vest
Installation view: Firstdraft Gallery, Sydney. Photograph: Silversalt
Escape Strategy One: The Raft is a two-part installation comprising a hand-built raft, painted oar and life-vest, accompanied by video documentation of their implementation. The performance sees the artist cast as lone protagonist, embarking on a one-way journey into the unknown. Referencing 18th Century explorers and the colonial myth of ‘discovery’, the work features a woman in the role of the adventurer, paddling off under a brooding sky with nothing more hopeful than an unbound stretch of water and dark forest ahead.