Torhamvan/Ferryland
2005
installation, on-site survey drawings and ephemera, preliminary model
An abbreviation of the place names along the ship’s original route between Toronto, Hamilton, and Vancouver, this installation records the present-day site of the 1926 shipwreck of the S.S. Torhamvan at Ferryland, Newfoundland. Two of the ship’s Scotch boilers, artifacts of late 19th Century industrial and maritime culture, rest on the rocks of Coldeast Point, Newfoundland along with other debris that is mostly covered by the sea at high tide.
This work was originally created for a solo exhibition curated by Jenifer Papararo at the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, in 2005. Papararo has characterized that installation, which included two faux boilers, as existing “between spectacle and documentary”. The boiler in the background and the rocky landscape extended in diminishing three-dimensional perspective from the façade of the front boiler and the installation was enveloped in dim blue light to create an illusion of a shipwreck in the landscape. This exhibition shows the primary, front boiler. The boilers, as well as the rocks, are formed by an intricate skeletal framework pieced together from recycled lumber, a key identifier of Lawrence’s sculptural works which often consist of armatures and covers, akin to a museum display. The Rock sculpture that is part of the Romantic Commodities project was a point of departure for the skeletal construction of this installation.
With a simple shift in the viewer’s position, the illusion of perspective breaks, creating a moment of both pleasure and loss, and giving way to a recognition of the work’s hand-built construction, made of hundreds of pieces of salvaged lumber pegged together with thousands of chopsticks and covered with pigmented canvas, meticulously sewn by Lawrence’s then-assistant, Randi Obenauer. This perspective illusion can be understood from the preliminary model. Lawrence achieved this suspension of disbelief through precise surveying of the site, numerous drawings and research into the boilers, Polaroids and pinhole photographs. The failure of illusion is inherently connected to the subject of the work itself. Lawrence consistently interrogates “old” technology in his work as a means of recognizing that all technology (including that which was seen as advanced and celebrated in popular culture in its day) becomes old technology.
While the Colony of Avalon historical site across from Ferryland Bay is recognized as an important tourist landmark, the shipwreck of this everyday cargo ship is primarily remembered by locals. As Papararo states, Lawrence’s installation is a monumental tableau of decay, “commemorating the forces of a growing economy by showcasing the remnants of its technological prowess.” As with much of Lawrence’s work that addresses
our relationship to urban and wilderness experiences, there is a tension between real and romantic viewpoints. Lawrence has exploited the romantic qualities of this relic, venerating it in the gallery context. Papararo contends, “Lawrence creates an opposition between illusion and material form, pivoting on the moment of transference, which shift from a static scene to a moving viewer and hinges on the individual perception of time.” Lawrence consistently brings forward the past to understand the present and implicates the viewer as an active participant.
Photo: SITE Photography
