Boatwalkers (in collaboration with Ibrahim Kurt)

A boat made by willow branches that were embroiled onto a steel skeleton/Installation/Performance

The boat is around 5 metres long, and the installation is around 3 metres high and 1.5 metres wide; the duration of the performance was 15 hours; the total walking length was 43 km

2025

Having recognized the uprootedness in both of us, we (Ibrahim Kurt and I) built a boat for the earth, as a symbol of the homes each of us has left without return and the houses being built within our inner worlds. We carry the boat on our shoulders and embark on an endless journey.

To visualize this metaphor, we dragged our boat from MIVC, Den Bosch, where we had built the boat together, to Clublokaal, Breda, where the project was exhibited. On July 3, we started synchronously with the opening of the exhibition, and livestreamed the whole journey on the curtain we had installed in front of a window in the exhibition space, as a reflection on the simultaneity of presence and absence, of being here and being there, of being at home and being on the road.

On July 4, we stopped our boat outside the space and opened the curtain. The boat could be seen through the window—we arrived.