Bottle at Sea

On October 8th 2021, at 5:30 pm, a bottle with a message was thrown in the ocean, off the coast of Brazil (12.55° S, 37.25°).

The message was written behind a cyanotype art of a planktonic being, a dinoflagellate named Ceratium.

After a 5 week scientific sailing expedition in Brazilian waters, between Macapá and Salvador da Bahia, the Bottle at Sea was my farewell ritual to the ocean. A first public artistic demonstration, a debut performance. 

During the 32 days aboard Tara I made around 30 cyanotype sun prints of plankton. I had brought to the ship all the necessary materials for this endeavor: coated watercolor paper with the cyanotype ferric emulsion (stored in black plastic bags), several plankton negatives from SEM images, a clipboard, four clips and a glass plate (which quickly broke with the motion of the waves and was later replaced by a sturdy plexiglass plate found on board).

The message was addressed to the person I hoped would read it and the cyanotype containing the message was rolled and inserted inside an empty wine bottle (which turned out to be surprisingly challenging due to the thickness of the watercolor paper!).

The message in the bottle was thrown in the ocean just before sunset. A plankton portrait was offered to the sea and, what came from the sea, was returned to the sea.

As the sun disappeared in the horizon, my 29th sunset at sea, it left with a brief yet magical green flash. A rare sighting of the famous “rayon vert” from Jules Vernes’ novel (1882):

Parfois, au moment de disparaître dans les flots, le soleil lance sur l'océan une ultime et brève fulgurance: ce fameux rayon vert qui, d'après une légende écossaise, confère à ceux dont il a frappé les yeux le pouvoir de voir clair dans les sentiments et les coeurs.

On April 4th 2023, at 4:57 am, one year and a half after the message in the bottle was thrown at sea, an email arrived to my inbox. It was from an unknown sender who said he had found the bottle.

The bottle and its message were found by Guilherme, a 17 year old boy from Brazil. He later wrote that he had found the bottle in Baixio, a small coastal town in Bahia.

He also sent by email two photos showing what he had found inside the bottle - the plankton portrait and the message behind it. Both were slightly faded (especially the written message) but still present.

For 18 months the blue message drifted at sea inside a bottle, before being found probably not too far off from where it was thrown from the ship. A message adrift at sea for more that 500 days found someone to read it. The artwork found its new human owner.

And the art performance was complete with a beginning, an 18 months’ odyssey - that only the sea knows its tale - and an ending.  

And the artist was born.

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