Film stills from Paula König: We are constantly sinking, maybe. one-channel video work, 22 minutes, 2026.

 

 

 

To Know The World We Live

 

 

Group show at An Tobar, Isle of Mull, Scotland
5 October – 11 December
North Atlantic Islands Residency

 

The video work We Are Constantly Sinking, Maybe traces daily routines of maintenance and care aboard Excelsior. The handling of pumps, tar, knots, machines, tanks, oil and fuel unfolds alongside phases of quietness, rest and repetitive routines, accompanied by the sound of the engine. Mainly, the manual bilge pumps keep the vessel from sinking, while water is meant to constantly seep through the wooden planks, which are nothing more than a permeable layer between the body of water that carries us and the vessel that secures us.

 

“To Know the World We Live traces the voyage of twelve creators across philosophy, science, and art, travelling through the Skagerrak, North Sea, and Baltic Sea. Over three weeks, we travelled 777 miles aboard The Excelsior, a 30-foot traditional fishing smack built more than a century ago.

 

[…] At sea, different ways of knowing came together through an experiential journey and an ongoing dialogue—one that emphasises not simply our existence in the world, but our active participation in it through physical engagement. Sailing demanded attention to the immediate and the elemental—to wind, water, movement and direction. It placed us within the environment we sought to understand.

 

The exhibition explores themes of sailing, the habitable and uninhabitable, and our changing relationship with the environment. Along the journey, we sought to connect lands across seas, remapping notions of centre and periphery while investigating microplastics, marine algae, and the ecologies that sustain life. The sea became both subject and collaborator—a vast connective tissue between places, disciplines, and scales of time.

 

The boat became both a vessel and a method: a shared space from which to observe, question, and interpret the world. Moving across shifting waters and between different disciplines, our perspective continually changed. The Excelsior offered not only a means of passage, but a framework for understanding—inviting us to reconsider where we stand in relation to nature, and what it means to know the world we live in.” (Text by Jemima Hall)

 

Thank you to @originalerrant2024 for creating this residency with @excelsiortrust
@creativescots
@antobarandmulltheatre