Three Ships Suspended from the Ceiling

Upon entering the lobby of the Yale Center for British Art, visitors are greeted by three ships suspended from the ceiling by wires. "The Survivor" (2022), "The Relic" (2022), and "Desire" (2018). The prows of all three ships point in the same direction, packed with cargo as if they had been retrieved from the sea mid-voyage and shrunk down.

The ships hang on ropes, swaying subtly. As if they still remember the rhythm of the waves. They are densely loaded with burlap sacks, potted plants, bundles of dried herbs hanging from the ship's sides, wooden crates marked 'fragile', fishing nets, and sacks whose contents remain unknown. Only two of the three ships carry sails, and even those are nothing more than torn and tattered pieces of cloth.

Carrying Rusted History

While the hulls of "The Relic" and "The Survivor" have been recently painted, most of their components are rusted and corroded, clearly showing the marks of being battered by wind and salt water. Nevertheless, these ships still appear as models of vessels capable of preserving human life.

"The Relic" carries a particularly intriguing structure. A two-story bungalow house erected on supports, complete with stairs, a porch, tilted window shutters, and a severely damaged corrugated metal roof. According to the exhibition brochure, this structure is a replica of a British colonial-era plantation house.

If this work is meant to convey the experience of being an immigrant from Guyana after independence, why bring this house along? And why create a house designed to float on water?

An Artist Who Has Battled Imperial Legacy

Hew Locke is known for work that sharply and repeatedly addresses the legacy of empire, symbols of political, social, legal, and economic power, and the aftermath of nation-building in response to the impoverishment caused by global superpowers. The key term binding all this historical complexity is 'colonialism' or 'postcolonialism'.

Although born in Scotland, Locke's family originally came from Guyana. He arrived by ship in Guyana (1966), known as 'the land of many waters'. There, as a child, he witnessed the colony's struggle for and declaration of independence from Britain. In 1980, he returned to England by ship and settled in London.

Ships Moving Both Forward and Backward

The names of the ships reveal an intention to merge the desire to travel and constantly move with the drive to survive. However, the movement of these ships points both forward and backward simultaneously.

They bring the past along with them. From the form of the loaded house, from the images of cutting and harvesting sugarcane engraved on the sail of "The Survivor", the past seeps into the present. The reason labor practices, social hierarchies, and forms of punitive violence repeat in the present is because we cling to certain habits even as we move toward postcolonial reality.

Invisible Cargo

The exhibition Passages is Locke's retrospective, being held at the Yale Center for British Art. Some of the cargo the ships carry is visible, but some is hidden inside sacks, their contents unknown.

The question Locke asks is this: When we survive, what survives with us? Do our ghosts and wounds sail along?

In addition to the ships, the exhibition includes works such as "Souvenir 6 (Princess Alexandra)" (2019), mixed media on Victorian porcelain. These works reveal the history of violence and exploitation hidden beneath the empire's glamorous surface.

Memories Adrift on Water

Locke's ships are not museum exhibits. They are still moving, swaying, heading somewhere. Despite torn sails and rusted hulls, they do not stop.

Making a colonial-era plantation house float on water may be a metaphor for a history that cannot take root, an identity that cannot be fixed. Like Locke's life, moving from Guyana to Scotland and then to London, these ships do not belong to one place.

But that does not signify weakness. Rather, it is evidence of survival. The cargo the ships carry—plants, food, tools—are the things needed to start again in a new land. Even while carrying ghosts and wounds together, they move forward.