On Thursday 1 September 2011 Voyager's Exhibition Team unveiled the latest exhibition in our Edmiston Gallery of Maritime Art. Until 31 January 2012 we will have on display 'Shipbreak: A Biology of Steel'.
This photographic exhibition was created by Claudio Cambon, who has been a documentary photographer for more than 20 years, and has photographed all over the world including in Italy and Germany, the American West, Mexico and Bangladesh, where he documented this exhibition. Claudio has exhibited, lectured and been published and collected internationally; this summer his work forms part of the Italy Pavilion at the 2011 Venice Biennale.
'Shipbreak' charts the last days of the American-flag oil tanker SS Minole, as it was beached in the breaking yards of Chittagong, Bangladesh, in January 1998. This signaled the end of long, productive life wandering the oceans for its American sailors. But for the Bangladeshi shipbreakers, who over the course of the next five months dismantled the vessel more or less by hand, it signified instead a new beginning. The remains of this ship provided many materials necessary to their country’s struggle to create a modern existence for itself.
The photographs in this exhibition give a record of the transformation of this process and they ultimately serve as a meditation on how life possesses us more than we do it, and how it mysteriously changes shape from one beautiful form to another.
We hope you enjoy seeing these haunting and stunning images whilst they are on display at Voyager.
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