Stefan Gec: Faedm
Please note: As part of the works on our exciting new capital project the Sammy Ofer Wing, the display of Faedm by Stefan Gec closed 10 December 2010.
Polyethylene foam, polyurethane elastomer coating, permanent ink marker, 1999
Faedm takes inspiration from historic charts used for navigation and from modern-day maritime industries. During research for this work, Gec spent time investigating nautical technologies that further navigation and exploration of the world's seas and ocean beds. The globe, which is constructed from the same materials as underwater buoys, is six feet in circumference – the measurement of a fathom. The word 'faedm' is rooted in old English and means 'to embrace': six feet is the measurement taken from the outstretched arms of an average-sized man.
Gec has inscribed the globe with figures which map the depth in fathoms of the ocean beds across the world, information that is taken from historic charts in the Museum’s collections. In this way Faedm represents the surface of the Earth, though unlike other globes it charts the depths of the ocean beds and leaves land mass unmarked.
After the globe was constructed, it was placed in a pressure chamber at the National Hyperbaric Centre, Aberdeen. This type of chamber is designed to simulate deep-sea conditions and is used for testing equipment destined for the North Sea oil and gas platforms, as well as training for deep-sea divers. The chamber was filled with water and the pressure increased, while the globe was observed and monitored until it began to implode – as if lowered into the sea. This began to happen at a surprisingly shallow depth, highlighting the tremendous force of the sea, but it was not until the globe reached 33 fathoms (60 metres) that the operation was stopped.
Stefan Gec has explored the subject of the sea and its contemporary uses throughout his career. In Trace Elements, a project begun in 1990 and still ongoing, Gec purchased metal from a group of eight decommissioned Soviet submarines being scrapped at Blyth, a small port in northern England. These submarines were part of the old Soviet fleet and had played a major part in the early days of the Cold War. He used this metal to cast eight bells which were then suspended from the High-Level Bridge over the River Tyne, in Newcastle. As the tide rose they slowly became submerged beneath the waters, mirroring their past role as submarines. The bells sounded as the flow of the tide activated their clappers, their ringing carried out to sea.
In 1996, Stefan Gec began the next stage of this project developing ideas of transformation and transference further. This was achieved by melting down the eight bells and casting them into a working ocean buoy, titled Buoy. It is designed to look and function like other buoys as it guides and safeguards vessels that use the international shipping lanes. Following its initial launch from Hartlepool, Buoy has been installed off Belfast and Dublin on a journey that will include consecutive offshore locations close to Reykjavik, Rotterdam, Oslo, Helsinki and finally Murmansk. Its arrival at this final destination will bring to a close a project that began in Britain over ten years ago.