Project Life-boats, which has been eight years in the making, was launched for the first time in Aalborg on June18, 2016. This was in connection with Aalborg Regatta and in collaboration with Aarhus, which is the European Capital of Culture in 2017.

 
Life-boats are three floating sculptures in concrete (12m long), which will sail with skippers and crew in Denmark and on the European rivers and canals with green and sustainable electric motors as propulsion.
 
The boats are a three-part portrait of womanhood in various universal stages and states and will become ”floating culture houses”, which will sail in Scandinavia and on the canals of Europe that shall lead them through the heart of European cities, which, of course, are built up around the ancient waterways. The project will not be restricted to the respective countries’ own borders, but will first and foremost connect their cities through a cultural exchange, which has always been a part of European history.

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For as long as man has been moving on the water, there has been a need for symbols of protection. The figurehead, as a protection against unknown dangers, has always been a reminder and an acknowledgment of one’s need for both the irrational and the spiritual aspect. The figurehead in this case has taken over and become the boat, instead of only keeping watch from the bow.
 
Just as Marit Benthe Norheim’s project ”Camping Women” did, so Life-boats seek out its own audience. It’s also a work of art that one can experience by chance, as they sail past. At the same time, one can enter them and experience their interior installations from both an artistic and a ship technical point of view when they dock at various ports. Inside the sculpture ships, one can also listen to music by composer, Geir Johnson, written specifically for each of them. The eyes were created by glassmaker, Peter Kuchinke.

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Marit Benthe Norheim’s artistic process has involved professional ship builders and other craftsmen, concrete experts, ships architects, composers, performers, fellow artists, students and a large number of volunteer supporting players from many cultures, as well as private and public foundations and other contributors.
The Private Foundation, Life-Boats (DSILB), and Support Association for Life-boats have been invaluable forces at work in the completion of Life-boats at many levels.

 

My ship is loaded with...
Each sculpture has its own identity and story, which their exterior appearance and their interior relate to.
The overall theme of Life-boats is woman in three life stages of life with the subtitles: 

1.           My ship is loaded with Longing
                - the young one, entering the world
 
2.            My ship is loaded with Life
                - in the middle of life and fertilised
 
3.            My ship is loaded with Memories
                - the aging or old
 

These biological components of the female reality are the same for all women in all cultures. Obvious, but nevertheless full of incomprehensible and irrational magic.

 

Description of each sculpture