Five Cowries Flotilla; Six Traditional Canoes from Lagos

As part of the Totally Thames festival, there was this installation called "Five Cowries Flotilla" outside the Tate Modern.

Initially it was a bit confusing, given that there were, after all, six of them.

But apparently the name relates to the Five Cowries Creek in Lagos, which is where the artist Polly Alakija got the inspiration. The traditional fishing craft were painted by school children there and then brought to London.

Very colourful they were too!

dpreview makes a Greenland style kayak

Regular readers will know I have a side interest in photography and one of the sites I keep track of is dpreview.

To test the video features of the new Canon EOS 80D they chose to show it in action while the presenter did something interesting, in this case make from scratch a Greenland style skin on frame kayak. Previously they'd tested the Sony A6300 by making a video about making local nettle beer.

While not tempted by the Canon (as posted earlier I can't see the point of the mirror and associated weight) that kayak does look tempting.

Alas Seattle isn't exactly on London's tube network, but its a great idea.

Ghost on the Thames

To follow up the last post, here is Adam Chodzko's Ghost on the Thames, showing it really can be paddled on a river.

There is a space for passengers that is deliberately made to be like a coffin, so the voyage travels metaphysically to the lands of the dead.

This picture (from the artists web site) gives a feel:

There's some lovely wood craft there, with Alaskan yellow cedar, western red cedar, Fijian mahogany, oak, ash, olive, walnut, and mixed media (again, from the artist's web site).