Dimensions: 10 X A3 Prints, 1 X 2 x 1 meter table
Materials: Digital prints, wood and glass top table, driftwood, audio

 

Comradeship can be defined as the feeling of friendship between people who live together. It can be about overcoming differences for the unity of a group. The broad and open nature of this term means that it has a different meaning for each individual. This exhibition focused on the death of Peter Thomson, a sailor who died of cholera after being denied entrance to the Flensburg harbour in Germany. He was buried by his fellow sailors at the Northern shore of Holnis. Using their gesture of comradery, it is only by placing the pieces of driftwood together that they form the outline of Thomson’s grave- stone. The driftwood was collected along the shoreline between Flensburg and Holnis, brings home objects drifting at sea, just as the sailors returned to the shore. However this is only one version of Thomson’s story, a multitude of options exist, yet all involve the quality of comradeship.

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This sound work uses this difference of meaning and places a multitude of opinions into a single space. By asking participants to speak in a language that they are comfortable in, such as their mother tongue, each one was asked to describe what comradeship meant to them. Across each language the meaning is changed, and within each nationality the understanding is a little different. Across ages, genders and perspectives this word became a combining force.