First shown at the Jam Factory in Adelaide in 2010, the exhibition has travelled to a less coastal destination – Canberra, Australia’s capital.
The show highlights 12 hollow wooden surfboards hand crafted by Peter Walker. Walker has used a multitude of techniques to construct and finish the boards – including timber joinery and laminating; bending, shaping, inlay, flaming, laser cutting, painting, and the more recent favourite – fibre glassing.
The boards are fully functional, and are designed to draw on the evolution of surfboard design history – from Tom Blake‘s design of the hollow board in 1929, to the birth of the fin in 1936, and Bob Simmons’ hydro-dynamic flow theories in the 1940s.
Walker collaborated with ceramic artist Gerry Wedd; industrial designer Quentin Gore and painter Phil Hayes for three of boards.
The Finless Double-ender (above) was an experimental design inspired by the rediscovery of ancient Hawaiian finless Alaia boards. "The 'mutated' aquatic forms relate to the mutated design of the board," says Walker.