Volunteers meditate in a “Ghost” kayak for a dream-like new film project
A new project on Northern England called the Super Slow Way invites people to lie in a coffin-like kayak to reflect on life as they float down a canal
![Super Slow Way Ghost kayak on canal](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/9XQhSStvWyacgxxY7xbkoM-320-80.png)
Passengers are taking a unique meditative journey along the UK’s Leeds & Liverpool Canal in a specially designed kayak (that’s actually a sculpture) called Ghost. It’s a project that’s being filmed for a documentary highlighting the historic waterway’s restorative powers.
The Super Slow Way, an arts program based in East Lancashire, has teamed up with artist Adam Chodzko, who sculpted Ghost back in 2010. Adam first unveiled Ghost for the Whitstable Biennale in 2010, and since then the kayak has taken hundreds of passengers on similar journeys around the UK.
For this project (more information here), Chodzko paddles one passenger at a time along the canal in Clayton-le-Moors, filming them on their journey using a special camera rig.
The passenger lies low and flat within a cockpit towards the bows. “Like a body in a coffin with their head slightly raised, traveling along the interface between water and sky,” says Chodzko, which may sound a little macabre (and look a little bit like Waterhouse’s “Lady of Shalott” in the photos) but is designed to be a meditative, reflective experience.
As Chodzko explains, “The dome in the deck of the kayak separates them physically and visually from the paddler at the back. The paddler and passenger experience the journey in silence, in order to allow space for perception. A camera, mounted on Ghost‘s deck, records each unique voyage, the passenger’s point of view, structured as a memory or dream.”
The resulting footage from this latest project will be compiled into a short film, which will receive its premiere in Hyndburn in Lancashire later this year.
As well as the passengers, for this project Ghost is also carrying a special cargo – shuttles from local mills, in homage to the canal’s original purpose of ferrying raw cotton and finished fabric in its heyday. Chodzko also believes the shape of shuttles reflects that shape of the kayak.
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The project certainly wasn’t short on volunteers; all the places on both batches of journeys – from August 6 to 11, and then from August 30 to September 4 – were quickly filled.
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