Fish Aid Boat

Helen Snell

Dimensions

260 x 340 x 70 mm (largest)

Materials

Boats (3): laser-cut card, spray-painted interior

Artist statement

‘This series of paper and acrylic vessels explores the theme of survival. The first prototype boat shape was based on a commercial packaging net, but I have repeatedly customised this and loaded it with imagery to produce a range of more complex laser-cut vessels. The boat can be seen as a life raft piled high with remnants of lost lands, a salvage vessel or Noah’s Arc. The devil is in the detail, however. The imagery reveals that, in our rush to discover pastures new or to escape the exhausted and derelict, we bring with us unwanted passengers, be they stowaways in the form of non-indigenous species, viruses and voracious technologies, or simply our own inadequacies.’