The Floating Passage

For Papay Gyro Nights Art Festival, Scotland

The proposed Floating Passage is meant to become a physical connection between Papa Westray Island and The Holm of Papay Island, a peace of infrastructure for those two territories. To insert this element of order in the geological chaos, the shortest connection path has been found: around 550m. This is also the scale of the later bonfire.

For a short period of time, this unconventional situation will be put to the test. How does it feel to pass from one island to the other by foot for the first time? How does if feel to meet someone in the middle of the sea? And in a new kind of space, with variable material density and rigidity. A weaved torsionated wooden tubular surface, sometimes reaching three meters in diameter, capable of creating it’s own universe.

A different kind of environment, soft, bluring gently the view outside, safe in the middle of the sea, reshaped slowly by the waves. An unusual space generating unusual activities(new rituals), encouraging unusual encounters.

Waving could be the most efficient constructive method for the Floating Passage because there is no need for additional connections and continuous surface can emerge. Same technique can generate both tick-dense and light-transparent areas.

This efigi will create a connection between those involved in the festival. The emotional load will help rise the value of the moment for those attending the bonfire. Everything will be intensified by this main event. At the end, the burning line connecting the islands will become a visual mark well-known to all those involved. A landscape-scale logo.