A Reverse Canoe Commute; or, Pointed Portage


This piece in the Times describes the conceptual reverse commute of two artists, on their way (back) to the Museum of Natural History.
Four days ago Mr. Starling and a fellow artist, Tyler Rowland — accompanied in a second (regular, nonart) canoe by another artist, Kasper Akhoj , and Dante Birch , a production manager at Mass MoCA — began enacting a kind of reverse expedition, taking not rare animal trophies but a load of complex cultural baggage and post-colonial inquiry back to the history museum. In May Mr. Starling put his canoe into the Hoosic River, whose south and north branches run through the Mass MoCa complex, and paddled and drifted to the Hoosic’s junction with the Hudson. Then, last Thursday, he picked up the journey in Albany, relying on tides, elbow grease and the kindness of strangers as he and the three other men made their way to Manhattan. (“Last night we had sushi, in Beacon,” Mr. Starling said when asked how they had been sustaining themselves along the way. “It’s been quite civilized, actually.”)
We would like to canoe the Hoosic someday. (Via D. Diehl.)

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