Waterworld

This is the kind of utopian thing you think only exists in movies. Reminds me of  "Beasts of the Southern Wild" (Which is actually a great movie btw). But what we got here is the real thing. This is the end result of the part art project part experiment of the street artist "Swoon" and other super talented artists. All the pictures are from Swoon's friend Tod Seelie who has been traveling with them and documenting the trips. 

"The group have organized three different trips so far. The first two were down the Mississippi. The plan was to take the rafts from Minneapolis to New Orleans, but the farthest the group ever made it was St. Louis because the river proved to be too strong. The third trip went down the Hudson from Troy, New York to Queens. The fourth trip went from Slovenia to Venice and was meant to coincide with the Venice Biennale. All these trips took place several years ago, but there is a new one in Oregon planned for mid-August. 

The rafts are made from recycled materials and essentially artfully made-up pontoon (their pontoons are wood with styrofoam inside instead of metal). The motors are old car engines that have been hacked to run propellers. On some of the trips, the boats were designed to not only move through water and house a crew but also host live theater and music performances. On the Mississippi trip, whenever the boats would dock near a town, the crew would invite locals to the boat and teach them trades like silk screening or costume making."

Kind of utopic right? I believe, once you get in the boat, you're in another dimension, another world where some rules don't apply. Where you can breathe a sense of freedom only the ocean can bring.  I would love to take a trip here or at least catch them to see performances & the whole thing in real life..

Via Wired