THE SEA IS ALL AROUND US

THE SEA IS ALL AROUND US

THE SEA IS ALL AROUND US
Margaret Woodward
Dome Gallery, The Mission to Seafarers Victoria
Docklands, Melbourne, Australia
11-21 May 2015
Margaret Woodward is Associate Professor of Design
at Charles Sturt University, Australia.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The sea is all around us is generously supported by the Faculty ofArts and the Institute for Land Water and Society at Charles Sturt
University; The Mission to Seafarers Victoria and Bendigo Wealth.
I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of Justy Phillipsand Craig Bremner; Print Mail Logistics, Hobart; Waldemar at
Nordlys Produckter, Poland; Bill Reid, Catherine McLay and thevolunteers at the Mission to Seafarers Victoria. I am indebted tothe visiting seafarers who have brought this project to life.

2
From Mission to Seafarer’s Victoria website: www.missiontoseafarers.com.au >“For their safe and efficient
operations, ships depend on
seafarers working far from theirhome and family for months,
sometimes years – often inharsh and dangerous conditions.
As an island nation Australia
relies on seafarers.
The work of the Mission toSeafarers is a way ofacknowledging their workand hardships, by provisionof support.”

I have always lived on islands. Some surrounded by sea andothers, urban and rural islands surrounded by vast tracts of land.
My parents first met at sea, on the S.S. ORION which left from
Melbourne for England on 19 May 1955. They, like other Australians
drawn by the adventure and sophistication of life and art inEurope, were following a reverse migration. My siblings and I grew
up on romantic stories of our parents’ voyage ‘abroad’ and how
later on their return journey, now married and expecting their firstchild, they were marooned for 7 weeks in the Indian Ocean due
to engine trouble and the crew’s unrest. As a girl, my bedroom
overlooked the Port of Launceston and I grew up watching thecomings and goings of dredges and barges in the River Tamar,merchant ships loading and offloading apples, wool, cars andmachinery. It is now possible to ‘virtually’ overlook almost any
port in the world. Global docks are viewed by taking remotecontrol of a live video web camera. One can view thousands ofshipping containers laid out like a tessellated carpet, with ships
berthed alongside concrete docks, their names, destination andcargo data instantly available with the click of the mouse. Zoom inand suddenly the port comes to life. You can see cables flutteringin the wind and the steady stevedoring movements of forklifts
and cranes. Everything brought to the fore in high visibility.

SEAROAD TAMAR, Australia
My mother’s brother was a seafarer, sometimes carrying goods
across Bass Strait to Launceston. When I was young we knew that
not long after watching my uncle’s ship berth, he would appearat the back fly-wire door, bottle of beer in hand and settle in
4 for an evening of stories. My uncle served in the Merchant Navy
Ponrabble II (1993), T.J. Woodward. Hand coloured linocut (detail). >and on the S.S. YARRA and was lost at sea for 10 days during
World War II. He led a seafaring life and found company in theSeamen’s Missions in various ports around the world. Sadly, many
years later it was my father who was lost at sea. Today, I live in a
repurposed Sea Scout Hall, with a verandah shaped like a ship’sprow, and the sound of waves lapping its balconies and decks.
The sea is all around us.

GLOBAL GALAXY, Panama
The Sea is All Around Us is an installation inviting seafarers andvisitors to participate in a global project which aims to map themobile life of seafaring souvenirs. For a fortnight in May 2015,
visiting seafarers activate a chalk drawn compass on the circularfloor of the Dome Gallery at The Mission to Seafarers Victoria inFlinders Street, Melbourne, marking the intersection of its latitudeand longitude (37 º 49’21” S 144º 57’03”E). Over these two weeksthe Dome Gallery will be inscribed with marks mapping themultifarious journeys made by seafarers, recording destinationand departure ports, homelands and waterways, and in doing
so will make visible a small segment of the global patterns ofseafaring. Custom-made souvenirs designed for the installation
are gifted to seafarers as gestures of welcome and receptacles for
future memories. I design these souvenirs in Australia and havethem manufactured in Poland so they can continue their journeyby sea, to destinations far beyond the Dome. Each of the limited
edition enamelware mugs, postcards and catalogues imprinted
with a QR code become trackable, mobile objects. Like messages
in bottles these souvenirs will leave our shores, as ambassadors,
6 carrying with them memories of the Norla Dome, the waters
Floor chalk drawing (2015). (Detail). >of Port Phillip Bay, Australia’s red soil and vegetation, and thepassage of a fleeting visit to Melbourne.

GLEAMING OASIS, Panama
As an artist and researcher at Charles Sturt University, located ininland New South Wales, I am often at a distance from Australia’s
coastal edges. The university’s many campuses are distributed
in a network of agri-urban population clusters, rural ‘islands’surrounded by agricultural land1. I work in the Faculty of Arts
which embraces diverse disciplinary perspectives including
creative arts, social welfare, social work, psychology, theology,
customs and excise, policing and security, social justice, humangeography, politics, history and humanities. The Sea is All
Around Us pays attention to the working lives of seafarers andthreads together many of these fields in the welcoming and safe
environment of The Mission to Seafarers Victoria. Backgroundresearch for this project has led to many conversations withvolunteers, staff from Ports of Melbourne and ex-seafarers, allof whom speak of the loneliness and isolation of contemporary
seafaring, quick turnarounds and short stays in port, dangerous
conditions at sea, the regimented working life and the impactof these factors on seafarers families. I am grateful for theseconversations and the many destinations to which they lead.
The Mission to Seafarers Victoria is located at latitude 37 º 49’21” Sand longitude 144º 57’03”E in the heritage building at 717 FlindersStreet, Docklands. It has welcomed seafarers continuously fornearly 100 years. The Mission, designed by architect Walter Butler
8 is built in a Spanish Mission style and was completed in 1917.
The Mission to Seafarers Victoria, Docklands, Melbourne. >Its architectural style accords with its function as a mission. Inside
is a complex which feels like a village, enclosed within stucco
walls and complete with a courtyard, garden, kitchen, chapel,
dining room and a circular gymnasium (now a gallery spacecalled the Norla Dome). Peter the Mariner’s Chapel offers a placefor reflection, while the sociability of the Flying Angel Club Hallprovides a warm oasis – a respite from the city and its port. Itis a mission within a mission. On the door, a laser-printed sign
greets visitors, saying ‘This Mission is more than a building. It is acollection of unique people. We strive to offer a warm welcome toall’. Seafarers are brought to the mission from Melbourne’s ports
in a mini-bus where they sign the visitor book, a living archivethat logs names, nationalities, ship’s names and ports. PATRAIKOS,Liberia; BOX EMMA, Marshall Islands; GOLIATH, Australia; MOL
EARNEST, Panama; FRISIA ALLER, Liberia2.

GOLDEN RESOLUTION, Hong KongLocal visitors curious about the anachronistic island surroundedby Melbourne’s remodeled docklands are welcomed inside. They
mingle with working seafarers, port workers, chaplains, volunteers
and artists. The Mission to Seafarers Victoria is more than thecollection of unique people that enter its doors day in and dayout. It is also a unique collection of objects; a time capsule
recording maritime histories and memories, a living archive ofmemorials and souvenirs. From the moment you set foot on theinlaid terrazzo mariner’s compass in the foyer you are entering
an environment steeped in artefacts from the sea; the chapel’spulpit carved in the shape of a ship’s poop deck, a brass ship’s
10 bell inscribed with the name DIOMED, a flag listing the many
Google Maps aerial view, The Mission to Seafarers Victoria, Docklands, Melbourne.
>

names of Australia’s merchant sailors who served in the British
Merchant Navy fleet during the second world war, and stained
glass windows commemorating seafarers lost at sea. In TheMission’s archives are letters, photographs, visitor books, badges,
newspaper clippings and souvenirs from de-commissioned ships3.
These artefacts that once formed part of the everyday working
life of ships and seafarers are emotionally charged, touchstonesof memories, integrated into a working mission. They are alink to nostalgia, to memory, to loss and longing. Through their‘emotional life’ they are transformed from everyday objects into ahighly significant collection of powerful emotional triggers.

AFRICAN TERN, Bahamas
The Sea is All Around Us marks the third stage of Tourism
Telemetry, my ongoing research project which seeks to reveal
the ‘mobile life’ of souvenirs4. This artwork builds on two recent
projects in which I use creative practice to activate souvenirs as astrategy for research generation. In Greetings from Aggaw Aggaw,
a sculptural installation at Wagga Wagga Art Gallery (2011), I
created a ‘fictive’ destination complete with its own customised
souvenir cloth badges, engraved pencils, postcards and footstools.
In Tabletop Cairns, Reykjavik (2012), I compared the islands ofIceland and Tasmania through souvenir objects that travelled
between the two locations. This artwork explored the capacity ofsouvenirs to transmit messages about remote places to distantaudiences. The Tourism Telemetry project uses the concept oftelemetry to understand how souvenirs as portable artefacts
have the capacity to carry and send messages about places,
12 remotely. Telemetry is used in science to measure and send data
Stained Glass Window (detail), Peter the Mariner’s Chapel, The Mission to Seafarers Victoria >through transmitters back to distant monitoring stations. It is usedfor example to track the movements of wildlife that have beentagged with radio transmitters, or to transmit meteorological
data from weather balloons to weather stations. Extending thenotion of telemetry to souvenirs allows us to understand theirpotential as transmitters of information about destinations andplaces. Purchased at a distance and then sent as gifts to others
or carried home, souvenirs transmit representations and myths
about places to their receiving ‘stations’ in the domestic settingsof everyday life. Cultural studies scholar Beverly Gordon proposesthat the power of souvenirs is enhanced by their travel. Sent as
messengers from places of heightened, extraordinary experiencesouvenirs are received back in the realm of the ordinary5.

SHANGHAI HIGHWAY, Panama
Making visible the complex geography of seafaring is possible
through a range of technologies and means. My tools of chalk,
mobile phone, tablet, QR codes, websites and conversations
become my tracking devices. I map the journeys of seafaring
visitors using a mariner’s compass and chalk to make a series offloor drawings. The ebb and flow of routes accumulate and blurwith the drawing process, a time-lapse of journeys made andimagined that registers seafarer’s destinations over a two week
period. Recent conversations at The Mission have led me to themany websites and apps available that incorporate sophisticatedGeographical Information Systems (GIS), Satellite imagery andGlobal Positioning Systems (GPS). In tandem with the Universal
Shipborne Automatic Identification System (AIS) – a telemetry
14 system used on vessels for identifying, locating and tracking
Maritime signal flag “Z” – used to address or call shore stations (2015). Digital photograph. >shipping traffic – these technologies work in consort to deliver
live shipping data on public sites such as Marine Traffic6. Dataon ships’ location, tracking, cargo, type, size, capacity, speed,draught and more are available at all hours, in ports all over theworld. As I write this essay, the Marine Traffic website hosts live
data on 70,645 ships worldwide. ARGENT FREESIA, Panama;
ZEMIRA, Australia; OCEAN CROWN, Singapore; MACHIAVELLI,New Zealand.7

GLOBAL VISION, Panama
Like seafarers, souvenirs have complex social and geographicallives. Some souvenirs are crafted and made in the place they arepurchased, but more commonly they are produced somewhere
entirely different and inscribed with words which connect them toa location. Their association with place makes them what Beverly
Gordon8 and Dean MacCannell9 call tourist ‘markers’. They carry
the mark of the place they represent, through image or text orinvisibly through memories associated with a particular place. Thisquality as a marker makes it possible map their place of purchaseand representation. However the souvenir’s place of productionis less easy to map and frequently bears no relation to the place
they represent. Shipped to Australia by ships and seafarers, thegeographic life of the enamelware mugs in this installation istypical of most souvenirs, and indeed most commodities that we
accept into our lives.

16

Aerial view of Appleton Wharf and shipping data for TAMERLANE (2015).
Source: Marine Traffic website (www.marinetraffic.com) >UNITED SPIRIT, Liberia
This project reveals more than the obsessive and mesmerising
tracking of shipping data. With the relentless flow of information
on shipping vessels, cargo and destinations accessible fromanywhere in the world – including from my office at an inland
Australian university – I ask myself what is the driving force
behind my desire to map the mobile life of souvenirs? How might
this process of artistic research that uses objects, drawings andmobile phone technology create new journeys and map newconnections that cross new bodies of land and sea? My earlier
research into the design of communication about natural andcultural heritage focused on John Urry’s concept of the ‘tourist
gaze’10. This is a concept that privileges the eye and the visualover other senses. Recently, and in response to the tourist
gaze a ‘performance turn’ has emerged which emphasises themulti-sensory aspects of the tourism experience through tasting,touching, smelling and hearing. Jonas Larsen explains thatthe performance turn ‘studies the “liveliness” of social life, by
highlighting how tourists experience places in multi-sensory waysthat involve not only bodily sensations but also affect and various
technologies’11.
Beyond their representational role, souvenirs also trigger
intangible, affective qualities. They offer reminders of journeys
and places, new associations with tastes, sounds and people, andthereby become objects which focus and hold memories. This
artwork bears witness to and raises awareness of the working
18 lives and journeys of seafarers. It makes visible their role inTea Urn (37 º 49’21” S 144º 57’03”E) (2015). Installation view (detail). >transporting commodities, materials and objects to and from
Australia’s shores. This project is about forging connections
between people, people and places and people and objects.
Everyday objects such as souvenirs, proposes Susan Stewart,
have a ‘secret life’, which can ‘reveal a set of actions and hence
a narrativity and history outside the given field of perception’12.
This suggests that souvenirs are ‘relational objects’13 thatforge emotional connections between people and places andsometimes, between places never visited and people who may
never meet.

SEA MELODY, Panama
From the outset this project is concerned with the life of theseafarer and the seafaring souvenir. The souvenir object is giftedwith a personal invitation to be ‘followed’ – to stay connected
through ongoing mobile scanning and mapping technologies.
Although facilitated by technology, this project revolves aroundhuman enterprise. A tea urn marks the centre of the compass.
Australian green tea is served in souvenir enamelware mugs andcakes are baked daily from the Central Cookery Book. This book isa staple of Australian home cooking and the rituals of welcoming
guests. Together, these sensorial gestures flavor the experienceof visiting seafarers and infuse their shipping data with a humandimension. I issue an invitation with each souvenir mug of tea.
Drink. Journey. Scan. Map. Drink. Journey. Scan. Map.
The sea is all around us.

20© Margaret Woodward, May 2015.
Souvenir enamel mug with QR code and teacake (2015). Documentation of an event.>

NOTES
1
The concept of rural islands is presented in Woodward, M., Bremner, C.
and James M. 2014) Murray Living: an argument for the future of creative
industries in regional communities. Australian Regional Development
Conference, 2014 Albury.
2

Cargo ships in port in Melbourne 21.30 EST 23/04/2015

For a discussion of the end of life of naval vessels and their conversion tosouvenirs see Gregson, N., Crang, M. and H. Watkins (2011). “Souvenir salvage
and the death of great naval ships.” Journal of Material Culture 16(3): 301-324.
3

For more information on the Tourism Telemetry project visit:www.sensingtheremote.net

4Gordon, B. 1986. ‘The souvenir: messenger of the extraordinary’. Journal of
Popular Culture, 20:3, p141)
5

6

www.marinetraffic.com

7Ships in port in Melbourne 21.47 EST 23/04/2015

8Gordon, B. Ibid (140-142)

9
MacCannell, D. 1976 The Tourist: A new theory of the leisure class. New York:Schocken.
10Urry, J. 2002. The tourist gaze. 2nd ed. London: Sage Publications.

11Larsen 2012, ‘Performance, space and tourism’. In Wilson J. (Ed) The
Routledge Handbook of Tourism Technologies. Abingdon: Routledge, p 67.

Stewart, S. 1993. On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic,
the Souvenir, the Collection. Baltimore: Duke University Press.
12Ramsay, N. 2009. ‘Taking-place: refracted enchantment and the habitualspaces of the tourist souvenir’, Social and Cultural Geography, 10:2, 197-217.
1322

Aerial view of Appleton Wharf (2015). Source: Marine Traffic website (www.marinetraffic.com) >