Forced Afloat
Rubber Mulch
TB edition: 60 feet diameter
2022
AKM edition: 5 pools, 2567 CF
2021

Forced Afloat is a public artwork consisting of thousands of square feet of blue rubber mulch, the kind commonly used in children’s playgrounds to slow movement, limit cuts and bruises, and cushion falls. When installed, the mulch’s azure-blue colour creates the illusion of a pool—a fake body of water—an association that is reinforced by the title. The mulch is made from recycled tires and is designed to invite play whilst also limiting movement to protect against injury. Rubber tires are sixty-percent synthetic and made from petroleum-derived hydrocarbons, which makes the mulch a contradiction in construction. Although it is framed as safe and environmentally sensitive, the material is packed with highly toxic chemical compounds and presents an insidious and underlying threat. Forced Afloat dispels the illusion of safety created by playgrounds and public spaces to reveal the invisible social contracts by which people accept limitations on their collective and individual freedoms—and sometimes ignore threats to the same. Forced Afloat was researched and developed while the artist was in residence at the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto; the residency was organized in partnership with the Delfina Foundation, London. At the Aga Khan, the mulch filled five large, reflective pools in front of the museum’s entrance and, although installed outdoors, the public was not allowed to touch or walk on it. When installed at the 2022 Toronto Biennial, the work was fully interactive, allowing members of the public to engage with it through touch and play. Depending upon where it is installed, and the different requirements of the museum hosting it, the work comes to symbolize either the projection of ideals of freedom and play or the challenges of institutional constraints and the rules that bind us from desired actions.

Photography:
Toni Hafkenscheid
Severin Wille