Swimming Cities by Swoon

At SMAC we have a sweet spot for Swoons fantastic projects. We spoke to her in the summer about an installation at a HoneySpace and most recently about the project at the Deitch Projects.

Seven handmade boats glided into the waters of the East River, as part of Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea. The show, produced by New-York artist Swoon, debuted this fall at Deitch Studios in Long Island City.

We had seven, but one died so we had to leave it, Swoon shouted to the crowd celebrating the September opening of Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea. As a marching band played and the sun went down over Manhattan, a steamer and five other old-fashioned boats were being docked following a three-week journey down the Hudson River and around the tip of Manhattan. Wearing a girly white ruffled dress, smiling Swoon greeted the crowd and showered them with sunflowers.

Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea is a floating art performance, a project that took the efforts of seventy-five collaborators and a year to produce.

The boats, or floating sculptures, were assembled and shipped to Troy, New York, stopping by various towns along the river for impromptu performances.

In 2006, Swoon participated in a similar project with a group of her friends when they sailed the assembled rafts down the Mississippi River. This time, the boats are just a part of Swoons show, which also has an enormous exhibit at the Deitch Studios. A twenty-five foot high paper sculpture of two sisters embracing occupies the center of the gallery space.

The sculpture of two girls came out of Swoons dream when she worked on the Miss Rockaway Armada project on the Mississippi River. Some of the floats were having problems and a giant woman in huge skirts came to her in a dream saying: You can just dock your boats in here, Ill keep them safe. Swoon imagines that if the East River were to rise, her boats could float into the shelter of the gallery space guarded by the sisters.

The image of a woman transformed into two embracing sisters. It became central to the installation as well as the narrative for the performances created by the playwright Lisa DAmour.

12,000 sq feet Deitch gallery in Long Island City is covered by Swoons work. Some of it is familiar from NY streets and some of it is completely new. Boats, docked outside, are connected by ropes to the Sisters stature. Every single piece of the exhibit is unique and different, and at the same time being part of the romantic narrative from Swoons world.

Swoon has always been environmentally conscious. Even the engines for two of the boats are recycled motors of an old Mercedes and a Volkswagen Rabbit.
For this show just about everything you see comes from somewhere else. Nothing was bought new, said Zev Deans, a project manager for the show at Deitch Studios. Some of the furniture was found along the river when the boats were coming down. There is an ecological lumber supplier they got a lot of their wood from.

All the boats are properly registered, and captains are licensed, although some of the boats got their license plates a little later. Prior to the opening day, police came to the docks, creating hustle, Deans said.

But everything came together at the last minute, he said, And came together beautifully.

Swoon is planning to continue with her water-inspired projects and boats. One of the projects is to build a floating city in Venice, another is to create power-generative playgrounds.

I feel like New York has this way about being sort of stoic about so many things, said Swoon. She finds that New York is so much about commerce and intellect, and is so much buttoned up that she felt like doing something to shake it up a bit.

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[scribemedia]

the song is by mice parade

[TheHauntOfEriatarka]

@scribemedia What's the name of the song? Im not familiar. Awesome work too

[rivenrock]

What an amazing idea. I'm glad they could preserve so much of her original style and asthetic, despite the new commercial turn.

[jtms9]

looky looky !

[winskel]

Anyone know the name of the song in the background???