Fancy flotilla
Today: Join us in a warm welcome for new Hydra Tod Seelie, photographer and author of BRIGHT NIGHTS: Photographs of Another New York.
Issue No. 329
Art Bateau
Tod Seelie
Art Bateau
by Tod Seelie
Itโs a long story that started with a dream and some junk rafts.
Four years after setting off on a journey that started on the Mississippi River in Minneapolis and took us as far as the Hudson River and NYC, the crew of the Swimming Cities were building junk rafts again, this time on the coast of Slovenia. The plan was to land in Venice, Italy in time to crash the Venice Biennale.
We were a group of artists and junkyard engineers with little to no experience on boats when we started. What had launched in Minneapolis as a bunch of ragtag punks with biodiesel on the mind had now landed us tired, a bit soggy, and living out of empty shipping containers on a beach. But it was fun, in an โis this real lifeโ kind of way.
My role was many things, like everyone in the crew. I piloted both rafts and small support craft, navigated, scouted ahead, filled in as a captain and engineer, and washed a lot of dishes. I also, for the first time in four years, prioritized photographing this big beautiful mess that was the Swimming Cities of Serenissima.
Keep us breathing fire!
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