#AfloatProject – Dalkey based visual artist Roisin Cunningham is to launch her 'Afloat' project this weekend off The Muglins that neighbours Dalkey Island in south Dublin Bay, writes Jehan Ashmore.
Weather permitting, the location of the small rocky outcrop with its lighthouse was chosen for launching 50 bottles because of the strong currents meeting in this area of the bay.
Locals and visitors alike were invited over the summer to contribute ideas, quotes, or messages and place them in the bottles which will also include a piece of artwork and a paper boat.
The overriding theme of 'Afloat' was to reflect on the state of the nation since the financial collapse and asks individuals to probe into how they feel themselves. In addition, the need to question our identity on several levels, as well as a collective expression of society.
Roisin who is artist in residence at Dalkey Rowing Club, said of the project "is about the proliferation of ideas that can move without being guided or controlled".
It is a search for a truth, as opposed to, the truth and Roisin sees that art has a central task in connecting to human relations and its conditions.
Our culture can dis-joint and can dis-connect us from our lives and we can feel individual and alone. In essence we tend to forget we are a collective and we share many of the same feelings and desires.
The artist had put up quotes and ideas from philosophers, theorists and even Groucho Marx and the central idea is not just about art and artists.
It is about humans and how we live or how should we live and with the purpose of the 'Afloat' project is also to inspire positivity and room for fun!
Now that the project has gathered a diverse amount of messages from Facebook interactions and from people the artist has encountered directly, the time has come to launch them out to sea.
Supporting Roisin in the launch comes from the Dalkey Rowing Club, where the East Coast club's rowing skiff's Junior Ladies team, are to row out the boat from Coliemore Harbour to The Muglins.
From there the vessels on board will be launched overboard. All these bottles bobbing about the water face an unchartered course and equally an unknown outcome awaits... like life itself!
