Boat

by Daniel Silver (2016) 

Location : Boat sits further along Great Maze Pond, towards Newcomen Street by Guy’s Cancer Centre.

Boat, a three-metre bronze sculpture that stands at the entrance to the Cancer Centre at Guy’s Hospital, is a response to the Roman boat (AD 190-225) buried almost five metres beneath the Cancer Centre and discovered in 1958.

The journey of the Roman boat through the archipelagos of medieval Southwark led Daniel to consider the links with our individual journeys through London and the wider world, and patient journeys both through the Cancer Centre and treatment. The depiction of a boat as a focal point and a welcome to the Centre seemed appropriate, positioned next to the road – docked mid-way on its journey.

Here the artist speaks about making the work.

Commissioned by Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, funded by Guy’s & St Thomas’ Charity. Curated by Futurecity.

Daniel Silver: The art of ancient Greece is particularly important to Daniel Silver and many of his recent works have evolved from the study of statues and busts in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. Such objects possess a clarity of purpose largely lost to us but that would have been instantly familiar to their contemporary audiences. Silver sees them now as the products of making and re-making; by the original artist, by the weathering of time and by their re-presentation as a piece of history in a museum.