1. Outer Jib, 14.5 x 8 x 7.5 m

2. Inner Jib, 12 x 10 x 4 m

3. Forward Stays’l 9.5 x 8.5 x 4.5 m

4. Fisherman Sail 13 x 6.5 x 10.5 m

5. Main Stays’l 10.5 x 9 x 5.5 m

6. Main Sail 14.5 x 15 x 5 m

IF THESE SAILS COULD TALK

Crafted in Poland during the Solidarność revolution and first installed on the ship in 1990, the sails saw thirty years of use, including an Arctic voyage, before coming into the hands of Filastine & Nova. They’ve since carried Arka Kinari through the North Sea, Atlantic, Caribbean, Pacific, three years of Indonesian voyages, and all the way down to the Antarctic winds of Tasmania, stopping in twenty- five nations, surviving squalls, cyclones and six months of statelessness during the pandemic. In this long journey the sails have seasoned from unblemished white to a tea-stained color, and also show their age through the dozens of hand-stitched patches of emergency repairs.

Through Kanvas Mutiny the sails will not only continue to travel the world, but also have their own voice, raising awareness of threatened seas and coastal communities, deepening our kinship with the ocean’s human and more-than-human life, and remaining as artifacts to outlast the ship and her crew. The completed pieces may exhibit singly or as an ensemble, and may be transported with the ship or independently as six folding canvases weighing under twenty kilograms per sail.

Artists rising up faster than the seas

With an emphasis on bringing the artists onboard as resident sailors, Kanvas Mutiny intertwines artists with the ship’s crew and coastal peoples of Arka Kinari’s Indonesian home waters.

Swoon (North America) joined the crew of Arka Kinari for two weeks in June 2024, sailing to the remote island of Flores, where the locals could witness and participate in the creation.

Taring Padi (Asia) met Arka Kinari on the docks of Semarang, the nearest port to their home in central Java, in September 2024. The waterfront of Semarang is already disappearing under rising seas, and the art production will be a public process in the flooded port zone adjacent to the ship’s mooring.

After sixty-thousand nautical miles, and twenty-five nations, from the tropics towards both poles, our ragged sails could no longer hold up to the wind, but they’ll keep on traveling as massive works of visual art. 

The six sails will be painted by artists from each of the six continents that the ship has visited, in a process that brings artists onto the sea and into collaboration with coastal peoples. The completed works will tour and exhibit independently from Arka Kinari’s voyage, reaching lands, contexts and spaces beyond the range of the mothership.

With an emphasis on bringing the artists onboard as resident sailors, Kanvas Mutiny intertwines artists with the ship’s crew and coastal peoples of Arka Kinari’s Indonesian home waters.

The first sail is already in the bag, Swoon just returned to New York City after a residency onboard Arka Kinari. At sea she helped us as ship’s crew, in port we helped her as artist’s crew. Local volunteers also joined in the process, all of us working before the eyes of a rotating crowd of onlookers in towns along the north coast of Flores.

We’d like to thank @Kindleproject for making this possible. Kanvas Mutiny would be just another wild artistic idea, prevented by the costs of travel, paint, materials, lodging and provisions. Kindle project put enough wind in our sails to get this mutiny started.