28’ x 8’ x 9’

Douglas fir, steel, four vintage boats

2015

2015 FSP/Jerome Fellow

Franconia Boat Tower was created in 2015 by Pete Driessen. The interior structure, made from recycled lumber, is an upright rectangle, 96-inches by 106 inches, and about 26 feet tall. Four boats are stacked within the rectangle, the smallest at the top to the largest at the bottom. Driessen specifically chose boats made of wood and aluminum so everything was more natural, more organic, and so it would slowly break down, creating a interesting dematerialization that occurs with the elements.

Driessen has always been interested in boats and nautical themes–his father and grandfather both constructed model ships, and Driessen spent time as a sailing and windsurfing instructor, even racing sailboats for a brief time.

Pete Driessen: “The nautical theme is interesting to me because of the wide range of social, philosophical, and psychological connections it contains. Foucault, the famous French philosopher, stated that the boat or the ship was a type of heterotopia, a place where you can develop your own mysterious life force and create your own space to develop anything you would want to do in life. He often related the boat to walking in the desert all alone on a nomadic journey to being alone in the ocean; this makes for some very powerful references. It also takes a lot of money to own boats, so economical themes are present.”

Source: https://franconiablog.wordpress.com/2015/12/04/franconia-boat-tower/