The film begins with a voice-off of the artist reading a letter to a man living in Paris – a monologue addressed to an absent male friend who is later revealed to be a fictional character. In this intentionally self-contradictory account, Waddington initially states that she spoke to no one in the course of the journey, while soon after saying that she spent many hours talking to the sailors.

The main part of this work, which is documentary in nature, is composed of her observations on the lives of the Romanian, Ukrainian and Philippine sailors on the ship. The fact that the sailors are working on the ship illegally, and thus cannot leave it when it docks, leads her to compare their status to that of prisoners, and to remark that they travel without getting anywhere. Some of them are not paid for months, and have no recourse to legal action against their employers. They follow voice commands given by satellite, but have no human contact with the people issuing these commands. In many cases, they have left behind families in order to provide them with a better future – a decision that has led them to live difficult and disconnected lives.

G.L.

Laura Waddington – born in the United Kingdom,1970.

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