Simon Starling
‘Shedboatshed (Mobile Architecture No. 2)’

Realised specifically for the exhibition Cuttings, Shedboatshed (Mobile Architecture No.2) is a reinterpretation of the idea of mobile architecture. The project involves the movement of a found structure, an old wooden shed, from one riverside location to another. This journey of 8 km downstream from Schweizerhalle to the centre of Basel was undertaken through the temporary mutation of the shed into a boat. This boat, a copy of a tradition Weidling, was made only with wood from the shed and was subsequently used as a transport system for the remaining parts of the structure. The shed already included an oar of the type used on Weidlings nailed to its facade as decoration. In its new location, the Museum für Gegenwartskunst, the boat was then dismantled and once again re-
configured into its original form, but for a few scars left over from its life as a boat, it stands just as it once did several kilometres up-stream.