BRODI/ONA “THERE WAS ONE ..”

ARTISTIC AND CURATORIAL RESEARCH,

ARTISTIC RESIDENCY, ISLAND OF KORČULA, 2023

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I will build a new – the ninth – boat in honor of a Korčula maritime heroine, as part of the artistic installation – the BRODI/ONA fleet. The BRODI/ONA fleet, conceived as an artistic, functional, mobile, interactive installation, I build with my own hands in honor of women who, despite prejudice and prohibitions, sailed the seas, built ships, and explored the maritime world. So far, I have built eight boats that form a fleet in constant construction and expansion.

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At the invitation of the people of Korčula (KAP, UIII), on the island of shipbuilders, throughout 2023/24 I have been researching Korčula’s maritime women from history to the present, as well as Korčula’s shipbuilding, especially the type of small local wooden boat – the Korčulanka. I found blueprints and some materials – wood from discarded wooden boats – and established many significant contacts.

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I am preparing for a solo exhibition BRODI/ONA “THERE WAS ONE..” in 2025, for which I am building an entirely new boat, drawing on the local type of small wooden fishing boat whose lines and aesthetics I will apply in my own construction, using more contemporary technology (West System with epoxy resin) and largely recycled wood collected from old discarded Korčula boats.

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I build the BRODI/ONA fleet independently, with my own hands and until now with my own resources, in my studio, mostly from recycled wood and epoxy resin. The boats are 4.5 meters long, powered by oars and sails, completely non‑invasive and integrated into the environment. The ninth boat I will build in honor of Korčula’s historical maritime heroine Katarina Drušković.

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Katarina Drušković, in the 19th century – the age of sailing ships, when women most often disguised themselves as men in order to even step aboard, due to the prevailing belief that “a woman is bad luck on a ship” – received recognition from the Maritime Government in Trieste (since medals for women were not foreseen by regulations), for her decision to change the course of the ship on which she had embarked as the wife of a long‑voyage captain, Josip M. H. Domenico Drušković. In doing so, she saved the injured captain and the crew, around 1862.

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Once I build the boat, as part of the exhibition in the form of a performative action, a Korčula godmother (a contemporary significant Korčula maritime woman) will name the boat, and together we will launch it from the site of the old shipyard in Korčula. Afterwards, together with the BRODI/ONA fleet, it will be exhibited in the City Loggia. This will be a significant moment, because after a thousand‑year tradition of shipbuilding on the island of Korčula, today shipbuilding has almost entirely disappeared. The old workshops, shipyards, and even the masters themselves have vanished. The local population speaks with pride and sorrow of Korčula’s glorious shipbuilding past, hoping for a museum and a revitalization of local shipbuilding.

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As part of the artistic research on the island in 2023, at the invitation of curator Sonja Leboš, I investigated which Korčula women built ships, sailed the seas, and explored the maritime world, from history to the present, on an island where for hundreds of years ships were diligently and superbly built, where hundreds of shipbuilders, caulkers, and various masters lived shipbuilding for generations – for eight hundred years since the first preserved document (and in fact much longer) – but little data has been preserved about women who participated in the maritime life of the island, shipbuilding, and voyages. In historical records, women appear as owners and co‑owners of ships, even large sailing vessels of the 19th century, as wives of captains or shipowners. In collaboration with the curator, I researched Korčula’s women shipbuilders, sailors, captains, sailmakers, shipowners, engineers, yachtswomen, ropemakers, etc. I explored available literature and archival material in the State Archive in Žrnovo. In this search we crossed the island lengthwise and breadthwise, spoke with people, encountered fascinating personalities and stories. Some came forward inspired by radio announcements, some saw posters pasted around the island and contacted us, and stories then unfolded in conversations with the people.

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When asked whether they knew or remembered Korčula women who built ships or sailed the seas, or knew of any story about one, at first people would hesitate, saying there weren’t really women who built ships, nor did they know of any who sailed the seas… but in conversation they would recall: ah yes, yes, yes – THERE WAS ONE...

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In honor of one of them, in my studio I will build the ninth boat of the BRODI/ONA fleet. I will build it from planks of decayed wooden boats collected during my research across Korčula – the island of shipbuilding. The island of master shipbuilders who for centuries built ships, from forty‑meter sailing vessels of the 19th century, to small fishing boats of exceptional maritime capability in the 20th century, and the industrial production of Korčula’s shipyards: Korčula, Ivan Cetinić, Inkobrod, Leda. Korčula’s masters were renowned far and wide for the quality of their work; their ships were commissioned by the Republic of Dubrovnik, the Venetian Empire, Pelješac joint‑stock companies. In the 19th century, Korčula’s shipyards accounted for up to 80% of the total tonnage of ships produced in the Adriatic. Their reputation was widely known. Organized in shipyards and workshops, they built thousands of ships over centuries, passing on their knowledge generously to Betina, Krk, and beyond. They ranked third among Austro‑Hungarian shipyards, after Trieste and Mali Lošinj. Yet the glorious shipbuilding past – the labor, knowledge, and skill that were part of everyday island life for centuries until the end of the millennium – has been lost. The master workshops disappeared, the shipyards vanished, and the masters themselves…

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On the island there still lives, in well‑earned retirement, the last of Korčula’s renowned shipbuilders, Marin Šale, who recalls with great sadness the times of vibrant shipbuilding on the island, remembering his lifetime in which he built 130 ships with his own hands… from the days when he was surrounded by generations of master craftsmen, to the moment when there is no longer a single shipbuilding workshop, almost no Korčula shipbuilder left.

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From the planks of decayed Korčula boats, from shipyards and slipways, I build a new boat of the BRODI/ONA fleet in honor of one of Korčula’s ship women, with all due respect to Korčula’s glorious shipbuilding history.