An artist-in-residency is stranded aboard a bankrupt freighter off the coast of Japan

2016-09-08T13:50:00-04:00

Part of the 23 Days at Sea residency, British video and performance artist Rebecca Moss left Vancouver on August 23 in a Hanjin freighter, expecting to dock in Shanghai on September 15. Run by Vancouver's Access Gallery, the residency focuses on issues of globalization, but what ended up happening during Moss's residency, while on-theme, wasn't exactly its goal.

On August 31, with debts amounting to $900 million, Hanjin Shipping Company filed for bankruptcy. Now placed in a receivership, meaning "in the custodial responsibility for the property of others, including tangible and intangible assets and rights", Hanjin was refused entry by Shanghai. It's now stuck in aquatic limbo off the coast of Japan, looking for a place that will allow it to dock. The shipping company is the seventh-largest in the world, accounting for 7% of container trade between North America and East Asia.

In an email to Access Gallery, Moss wrote: “I can’t begin to describe how it feels to look out the window and...

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An artist-in-residency is stranded aboard a bankrupt freighter off the coast of Japan