Ghost by Adam Chodzko
Earlier this year, people were invited to take a journey on Ghost along the Leeds & Liverpool Canal. Ghost is a specially built wooden kayak created by artist Adam Chodzko.
Ghost was a multi-sensory experience, giving the feeling of being suspended in a shell floating in water, as paddler and passenger experience the journey in silence. A camera mounted on Ghost‘s deck recorded each unique voyage from the passengers’ point of view, to create a dream-like film which was then exhibited at an event in Hyndburn over the autumn.
As well as a passenger from the local community, Ghost also carries a cargo of shuttles from local mills, in homage to the canal’s original purpose of ferrying raw cotton and finished fabric in its heyday. Ghost’s shape echoes that of the wooden shuttle and recreates its journey back and forth across the loom, weaving a digital trace on film.
First exhibited in the Whitstable Biennale in 2010, Ghost has taken hundreds of passengers over the years, from a great range of communities along various waterways across the country, including the Medway, Tamar, Tyne and Thames, many of whom have never travelled on water before their journey in Ghost.
