presentation
About halfway through the line memorization Lynn asked me what I wanted to do with it. Where was this project going? Should there be a performance? I said yes, and decided to actually be the performer. Moments of courage come at the strangest times.
Either way, with that agreed upon I then needed to come up with a performance plan. I couldn't just stand in front of a group of people and recite 273 lines of poetry, most of which people skip in their own reading of the Iliad because it is notorious for being boring. The whole room would be asleep before I even got halfway.
I started imagining a performance with a young child narrating this as they played with their own ships. I used to make up stories for my toys and that flicker of nostalgia was rather seductive. The whole childhood theme continued with my decision to make paper boats. I remembered reading a large compendium of Curious George stories as a child, one of which detailed Curious George and his attempt at working a paper route. Spoilers: he got bored halfway through and folded the newspapers into boats and sent them down the river. There was an entire page dedicated to the instructions of paper boat folding. That was what I pictured.
The original idea was to have hundreds of folded boats covering the floor of the performance space. I would go along and interact with them while narrating the catalogue. Things changed pretty quickly when playing with boats got boring for me about three stanzas in. At this point, however, we already had a solid 40 or 50 ships folded, so those would just be incorporated some other way.
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Eventually, probably by mid-October, Lynn had the absolutely brilliant idea of hanging the boats from the ceiling. I could narrate while walking through and collecting a sea of boats! We continued folding boats, purchased some old TV cable and way too much fishing line, and had a plan. The cable was strung on the ceiling, the fishing wire was attached to the boats by paperclip (thank you Ceci for that genius plan!) and the boats were hung from the cable.
In the end, there were approximately 500 paper boats. It took four or five people and two ladders nearly four hours to set up the rig.
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Because of a variety of reasons, the performance date got moved several times. Originally supposed to be the 17th of November, the final project was showcased on January 15, 2017. Some unforeseeable conflicts arose along the way, and in the end it was decided that perhaps the easiest option would be to film me reciting the catalogue of ships and project that film onto the veritable floating wall of paper boats that the cable rig provided. One Saturday evening in early January I recited the catalogue of ships four different times: once to warm up, and then two more were filmed before the final run-through happened.
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The day of the exhibition, the boats were hung and we created a beach against the back wall to symbolize the Greek landing at Troy and all of the fighting that had occurred between the start of the Trojan War and the year in which the Iliad takes place. Some boats were artfully burned to show the destruction that happened in that time period. The "beach" was awash with boat carcasses.
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I'm not really sure what I expected. Floating boats, destroyed boats, lots of paper, lots of fishing wire, and a giant projection of my face did not come together seamlessly in my imagination. I ended up being pleasantly and wonderfully surprised. The room was dark, with the exception of the video projection which gave the boats and the atmosphere a rather eerie feel. It was a little dark and ominous, which is rather the mood in the catalogue. In that sense, everything came together perfectly.
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When I first started the project, I was just another of those who believed the catalogue of ships to be boring. Taking the time to translate and then memorize the lines, however, led to a lot of reflection on my part, and suddenly the story and characters gained even more dimension for me. It wasn't just that Achilles was fighting Hector; no, there were so many others who had come out of loyalty or respect for an oath who had perished in a quest that wasn't even theirs to begin with. These thoughts, along with the image that the exhibition presented, really made me appreciate the depth and complexity of something as simple as a list of places.
Acknowledgements: I would not have been able to do any of this without the support from my friends. Thank you for folding boats, keeping me organised and positive, and aiding in the design of this website.
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Thanks especially, however, to Prof. Lynn Kozak. You supported and encouraged me through everything and were flexible and patient with me throughout the entire process. I appreciate all that you did for and during this project more than you know. Thank you.
