A Beached Fleet

[steepholm]

Today was the first day of the "Withdrawn" exhibition by Luke Jerram, the same installation artist who brought us last year's water slide in Park St and, some time before that, outdoor pianos - both ideas that were exported to many cities beyond Bristol.

This time Jerram has arranged for a small fleet of five retired fishing boats to be brought to Leigh Woods (just on the other side of the Clifton Suspension Bridge) and left there for six months, as if beached by the Flood. It was a lovely afternoon today, so as the shadows started to lengthen I wandered over the bridge to have a look...





This is mostly for consonantia's benefit, so that she can picture the scenes from Deep Secret and Fire and Hemlock. (The tide was out when this photo was taken - hence the mud.)


Bristol being a city of bridges and balloons, we should play a little Joanna Newsom to get us in the mood:

We sailed away on a winter's day
with fate as malleable as clay;
but ships are fallible, I say,
and the nautical, like all things, fades.

And I can recall our caravel:
a little wicker beetle shell
with four fine masts and lateen sails,
its bearings on Cair Paravel.

















I liked it (or I wouldn't have bothered posting here). Jerram's trademark clearly lies in his talent for weird juxtaposition, and maybe that's a trick that will get old, but so far I find his work enchanting and - on today's showing - accessible to pretty much everyone.

And, for those who are tired on the long walk back to the road, there's this cunningly carved, cat-inclusive sofa...



Meanwhile, you will know that I love seeing anime evocations of England, so I was delighted to find the first episode of Kiniro Mosaic, which is very cute indeed in that regard - not least in the English spoken by the English characters. They do seem to have done some pretty good research when it comes to the look of the Cotswolds, though: I felt I'd seen the town before, but I'm not quite familiar enough with the area to be sure.

Comments

[nightspore.livejournal.com]

Lovely.