GREG WINDSOR
SCULPTOR & PAINTER
Lighfboat
2015-2018
Recycled Timber, Steel, Plexiglass, Solar Array
WINNER:
'Max Fabre Foundation Environmental Award',
Swell, 2016
Currumbin, Queensland
WINNER:
4 Islands Festival, 2015
Karragarra Island, Moreton Bay, Aug 2015.
Originally Exhibited:
Sculpture on the Edge, 2014
Spicer's Tamarind, Maleny.
Lighfboat has been described as ‘whimsical’ or looking like an ice-cream cone; a treat or a dessert; a western world ‘goodie’ that speaks of the luxury of indulgence.
Yet the work is symbolic and represents a non-directional boat that embodies the plight and suffering of refugees fleeing a place of conflict, and having nowhere to go.
The irony of one’s first impression—comfort and playfulness—is the pointed barb of Windsor’s wit. Of the work, Windsor questions what we consider to be of value:
What does it mean to ‘value’?
Our entitled attitudes to discards – to consumption and waste – distorts our values about how we treat people. We accept the notion of a throwaway society, so it is likewise acceptable to discard people as well.
Lighfboat references ‘Arte Povera’ in its use of discarded materials. The packing case symbolises the ethic of consumption… and a symbol of the ‘common man’.
The material is common and globally available –so anyone can buid a boat out of packing cases to flee conflict and persecution.
A boat is built to the human scale, but the Lighfboat is intended as a singular watercraft, which points to the individual’s plight. It’s not a boatload of ‘them’ it is a singular human, the fleeing individual, a ‘fanfare for the common man’.
The westernised philospohy that we know best…
…couldn’t be further from the truth.
What does it mean ‘to value’?
