Idea | Skye Williams was completing a Masters in Urban Planning that needed a project. A group of youngish people wanted something to do together. Then there was the environmental apocalypse darkening our horizons. With most thought and action backlit in this sinister fashion, a certain mania began to creep into our way of being. We wanted to channel it. Launch | The official brief became: ‘to exp
lore what most compels people to initiate urban change and engage with their surroundings in a meaningful way’. Impulse and compulsion: we knew this was currency in which we wanted to trade. However to engage issues of urban and climate change on such instinctual level we needed a ‘clean’ space, somewhere to go blank canvas. We petitioned the council for a space on Matiu Somes Island. They offered us a decommissioned tugboat and a space to moor instead. It seemed fitting that something scheduled to be scuttled should be our first vessel. Passage of the SS Think Tanker | Having rechristened her we moved in and shipped off. The vision was to create an offshore colony in a predator free environment. We weren’t interested creating a new set of rules to live by but wanted to be guided by our own intuitive patterns and native rhythms - hopefully migrating towards a more sustainable style of urban living in the process. It was a breaking down, a manufactured chaos, and importantly a chance for reordering. We re-patterned ourselves. Finding ways to include thoughts of the apocalypse and it’s opportunities for change into our waking life and daily routines. We had invented a constant and sensual alarm to optimise motivation and overcome apathy. Fueled by this new, green, and unlimited source of energy it became clear we needed to end our time at sea.
