STE(A)M_SHIP Arts being added to the core curriculum of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. This creative programme on the pontoon Robin II at Trinity Buoy Wharf London encompasses all of these specialisations in an interdisciplinary framework. Here, SHIP is the acronym Submarinal Hosted Innovation Programme.
Slideshow images: children of ex-pat workers at The American School, Delhi; daughter of migrant roadworker family, Delhi; economic migrant working illegally, Kuala Lumpur; discarded international phone cards at migrant reception centre, Kuala Lumpur; historic passport with entry stamps to East Africa from India. Portraits created by Garry Hunter, with assistance from UNICEF India and UN Refugee Council Malaysia.
April/May 2025: DOCUMENT an immersive installation on the movement of people, utilising found items including passports and work permits, alongside previously unseen photography taken during assignments with the UN Population Fund in West Africa, UNICEF in India and the UN Refugee Council in Southeast Asia in 2007-10. This work will grow as photographer Garry Hunter invites professional artists alongside visitors to add contributions throughout April 2025 and into mid-May 2025. Curated by Graham Carrick for Fitzrovia Noir.
Current refugee migration into Europe and onto the UK is largely seaborne, with the pontoon’s own voyage across the Baltic / North Sea, adding poignancy to the 1938-9 refugee routes to the London Docks, from Poland, where the pontoon itself was constructed.
Matthew Kolakowski’s ongoing assemblage series WALIZKA MOJEGO TATY (Daddy’s Suitcase) will occupy a section of the pontoon, detailed cardboard suitcase sculptures made from Polish food packaging, inspired by the case that his father would take on RAF missions in World War Two after he escaped from Occupied Europe – but also directly referencing the many empty, abandoned suitcases piled up after the travel possessions of Jews forced onto trains were confiscated by Nazis.
Photographic works created in Vietnam while Hunter researched and wrote The Landscape of Aftermath for the journal Crossings – published by the Centre for the Study of Migration at Queen Mary College – feature alongside a piece by the artist Linda Duong, whose work is the subject of the study. Duong received two Arts Council grants to re-examine the landscape of Vietnam, while referencing her own family’s forced evacuation in the late 1970s, when they travelled as refugees first into China, then on to settle in County Durham. WITHIN THE BAMBOO WALLS not only documents the artist’s disembodied relationship with her country of birth, but the collective memories preserved within Vietnam’s physical geography. The piece exhibited here BOMB CRATERS shows that when American aeroplanes left their mark upon Halong Bay, they were then used as swimming pools by local children, after becoming filled with rainwater. April 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Saigon from American military occupation.
May 2025: Anna Wolf, a writer and performer originally from South Africa and now living in London, is exploring SS Robin and the supporting pontoon as a giant percussive instrument. This will include rehearsals for new material inspired by this immersive experience and live recording by Oliver Beard, a professional sound engineer based at Trinity Buoy Wharf, who will also blend the sounds of restoration resonating throughout the vessel. Dates / times TBC.
June 2025: a sonic piece constructed from ambient recordings of SS Robin/pontoon; tidal rise and fall; the weather; restoration noise, will be installed via speakers in the pontoon and around the exposed ship’s hull.
FRAGMENTS rescued artworks from non-gallery and outdoor sites including panels from Electric Soup 2012, painted on Orchard Place within a TBW Trust-funded programme. Dates TBC.
ILLUTRON reciprocal hosting of artists and engineers from https://www.illutron.dk run by the designers and builders of Fitzrovia Noir’s Faraday cage / Tesla coil sonic interface, previously supported by TBW Trust. The barge Illutron is in dry dock on the island of Ærø where Marstal maritime engine works is being made into a creative making space, so this can help foster cultural exchanges on the Illutron barge including reciprocity for TBW based artists. Dates TBC.
MARITIME TRUST co-created photographic works with the North East Maritime Trust and the Sea Scouts of Training Ship Collingwood, in South Shields throughout May 2025, with the resulting images exhibited on the pontoon Robin II during:
London Open House – September 2025 times / dates to follow.
PhotoMonth – October 2025 times / dates to follow.
Economic migrant awaiting work permit, Kuala Lumpur. Portrait created by Garry Hunter, with assistance from UN Refugee Council Malaysia.
The pontoon creative programme STE(A)M_SHIP is supported by
STE(A)M_SHIP Arts being added to the core curriculum of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. This creative programme on the pontoon Robin II at Trinity Buoy Wharf London encompasses all of these specialisations in an interdisciplinary framework. Here, SHIP is the acronym Submarinal Hosted Innovation Programme.
Slideshow images: children of ex-pat workers at The American School, Delhi; daughter of migrant roadworker family, Delhi; economic migrant working illegally, Kuala Lumpur; discarded international phone cards at migrant reception centre, Kuala Lumpur; historic passport with entry stamps to East Africa from India. Portraits created by Garry Hunter, with assistance from UNICEF India and UN Refugee Council Malaysia.
April/May 2025: DOCUMENT an immersive installation on the movement of people, utilising found items including passports and work permits, alongside previously unseen photography taken during assignments with the UN Population Fund in West Africa, UNICEF in India and the UN Refugee Council in Southeast Asia in 2007-10. This work will grow as photographer Garry Hunter invites professional artists alongside visitors to add contributions throughout April 2025 and into mid-May 2025. Curated by Graham Carrick for Fitzrovia Noir.
Current refugee migration into Europe and onto the UK is largely seaborne, with the pontoon’s own voyage across the Baltic / North Sea, adding poignancy to the 1938-9 refugee routes to the London Docks, from Poland, where the pontoon itself was constructed.
Matthew Kolakowski’s ongoing assemblage series WALIZKA MOJEGO TATY (Daddy’s Suitcase) will occupy a section of the pontoon, detailed cardboard suitcase sculptures made from Polish food packaging, inspired by the case that his father would take on RAF missions in World War Two after he escaped from Occupied Europe – but also directly referencing the many empty, abandoned suitcases piled up after the travel possessions of Jews forced onto trains were confiscated by Nazis.
Photographic works created in Vietnam while Hunter researched and wrote The Landscape of Aftermath for the journal Crossings – published by the Centre for the Study of Migration at Queen Mary College – feature alongside a piece by the artist Linda Duong, whose work is the subject of the study. Duong received two Arts Council grants to re-examine the landscape of Vietnam, while referencing her own family’s forced evacuation in the late 1970s, when they travelled as refugees first into China, then on to settle in County Durham. WITHIN THE BAMBOO WALLS not only documents the artist’s disembodied relationship with her country of birth, but the collective memories preserved within Vietnam’s physical geography. The piece exhibited here BOMB CRATERS shows that when American aeroplanes left their mark upon Halong Bay, they were then used as swimming pools by local children, after becoming filled with rainwater. April 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Saigon from American military occupation.
May 2025: Anna Wolf, a writer and performer originally from South Africa and now living in London, is exploring SS Robin and the supporting pontoon as a giant percussive instrument. This will include rehearsals for new material inspired by this immersive experience and live recording by Oliver Beard, a professional sound engineer based at Trinity Buoy Wharf, who will also blend the sounds of restoration resonating throughout the vessel. Dates / times TBC.
June 2025: a sonic piece constructed from ambient recordings of SS Robin/pontoon; tidal rise and fall; the weather; restoration noise, will be installed via speakers in the pontoon and around the exposed ship’s hull.
FRAGMENTS rescued artworks from non-gallery and outdoor sites including panels from Electric Soup 2012, painted on Orchard Place within a TBW Trust-funded programme. Dates TBC.
ILLUTRON reciprocal hosting of artists and engineers from https://www.illutron.dk run by the designers and builders of Fitzrovia Noir’s Faraday cage / Tesla coil sonic interface, previously supported by TBW Trust. The barge Illutron is in dry dock on the island of Ærø where Marstal maritime engine works is being made into a creative making space, so this can help foster cultural exchanges on the Illutron barge including reciprocity for TBW based artists. Dates TBC.
MARITIME TRUST co-created photographic works with the North East Maritime Trust and the Sea Scouts of Training Ship Collingwood, in South Shields during May 2025, exhibited with the resulting images exhibited on the pontoon Robin II for:
London Open House – September 2025, times/dates to follow.
PhotoMonth – October 2025, times/dates to follow.
Economic migrant awaiting work permit, Kuala Lumpur. Portrait created by Garry Hunter, with assistance from UN Refugee Council Malaysia.
The pontoon creative programme STE(A)M_SHIP is supported by
STE(A)M_SHIP Arts being added to the core curriculum of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. This creative programme on the pontoon Robin II at Trinity Buoy Wharf London encompasses all of these specialisations in an interdisciplinary framework. Here, SHIP is the acronym Submarinal Hosted Innovation Programme.
Slideshow images: children of ex-pat workers at The American School, Delhi; daughter of migrant roadworker family, Delhi; economic migrant working illegally, Kuala Lumpur; discarded international phone cards at migrant reception centre, Kuala Lumpur; historic passport with entry stamps to East Africa from India. Portraits created by Garry Hunter, with assistance from UNICEF India and UN Refugee Council Malaysia.
April/May 2025: DOCUMENT an immersive installation on the movement of people, utilising found items including passports and work permits, alongside previously unseen photography taken during assignments with the UN Population Fund in West Africa, UNICEF in India and the UN Refugee Council in Southeast Asia in 2007-10. This work will grow as photographer Garry Hunter invites professional artists alongside visitors to add contributions throughout April 2025 and into mid-May 2025. Curated by Graham Carrick for Fitzrovia Noir.
Current refugee migration into Europe and onto the UK is largely seaborne, with the pontoon’s own voyage across the Baltic / North Sea, adding poignancy to the 1938-9 refugee routes to the London Docks, from Poland, where the pontoon itself was constructed.
Matthew Kolakowski’s ongoing assemblage series WALIZKA MOJEGO TATY (Daddy’s Suitcase) will occupy a section of the pontoon, detailed cardboard suitcase sculptures made from Polish food packaging, inspired by the case that his father would take on RAF missions in World War Two after he escaped from Occupied Europe – but also directly referencing the many empty, abandoned suitcases piled up after the travel possessions of Jews forced onto trains were confiscated by Nazis.
Photographic works created in Vietnam while Hunter researched and wrote The Landscape of Aftermath for the journal Crossings – published by the Centre for the Study of Migration at Queen Mary College – feature alongside a piece by the artist Linda Duong, whose work is the subject of the study. Duong received two Arts Council grants to re-examine the landscape of Vietnam, while referencing her own family’s forced evacuation in the late 1970s, when they travelled as refugees first into China, then on to settle in County Durham. WITHIN THE BAMBOO WALLS not only documents the artist’s disembodied relationship with her country of birth, but the collective memories preserved within Vietnam’s physical geography. The piece exhibited here BOMB CRATERS shows that when American aeroplanes left their mark upon Halong Bay, they were then used as swimming pools by local children, after becoming filled with rainwater. April 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Saigon from American military occupation.
May 2025: Anna Wolf, a writer and performer originally from South Africa and now living in London, is exploring SS Robin and the supporting pontoon as a giant percussive instrument. This will include rehearsals for new material inspired by this immersive experience and live recording by Oliver Beard, a professional sound engineer based at Trinity Buoy Wharf, who will also blend the sounds of restoration resonating throughout the vessel. Dates / times TBC.
June 2025: a sonic piece constructed from ambient recordings of SS Robin/pontoon; tidal rise and fall; the weather; restoration noise, will be installed via speakers in the pontoon and around the exposed ship’s hull.
FRAGMENTS rescued artworks from non-gallery and outdoor sites including panels from Electric Soup 2012, painted on Orchard Place within a TBW Trust-funded programme. Dates TBC.
ILLUTRON reciprocal hosting of artists and engineers from https://www.illutron.dk run by the designers and builders of Fitzrovia Noir’s Faraday cage / Tesla coil sonic interface, previously supported by TBW Trust. The barge Illutron is in dry dock on the island of Ærø where Marstal maritime engine works is being made into a creative making space, so this can help foster cultural exchanges on the Illutron barge including reciprocity for TBW based artists. Dates TBC.
MARITIME TRUST co-created photographic works with the North East Maritime Trust and the Sea Scouts of Training Ship Collingwood, in South Shields during May 2025, exhibited with the resulting images exhibited on the pontoon Robin II for:
London Open House – September 2025, times/dates to follow.
PhotoMonth – October 2025, times/dates to follow.
Economic migrant awaiting work permit, Kuala Lumpur. Portrait created by Garry Hunter, with assistance from UN Refugee Council Malaysia.
The pontoon creative programme STE(A)M_SHIP is supported by