Forced Afloat

Toronto biennial Edition 2022
Aga Khan Museum Edition 2021

Forced Afloat is a public artwork composed of thousands of square feet of blue rubber mulch—the kind commonly used in children’s playgrounds to slow movement and cushion falls. When installed, the mulch’s vivid azure colour creates the illusion of a pool, a false body of water—an association reinforced by the title.

Forced Afloat disrupts the illusion of safety constructed by playgrounds and public spaces, exposing the invisible social contracts through which people accept limitations on their collective and individual freedoms—and at times, overlook threats to them. The work is fully interactive, inviting the public to engage with it through touch and play. Depending on its site and the requirements of the hosting institution, the piece comes to symbolize either the projection of ideals of freedom and play or the challenges of institutional constraint and the rules that bind us from desired action.

Rubber Mulch
TB edition: 60 feet diameter
AKM edition: 5 pools, 2567 CF

Photography:
Toni Hafkenscheid
Severin Wille