Artist Frank Boelter set sails in his lifesize paper boat as he leaves a shipyard in Lauenburg, Germany. He constructed the 9-metre vessel from ‘Tetrapack’ and fearlessly sailed it up the Elbe, despite the fact the light material is more commonly used for packaging milk. The 37-year-old artist came up with the idea one breakfast time, while he was sitting at his kitchen table fiddling with an empty milk carton, which he cut up and made into a scaled-down model.
The £110 boat is 30 feet long, weighs 55 pounds, uses a 170-square-metre piece of Tetrapack paper, and took only two hours to construct. Boelter said it will survive forty days before it disintegrates into a wet, sinking mass.
It is part of the artist’s exhibition named ‘Bis ans Ende der Welt’ (Until the end of the world). It’s aqua-origami, all right, but is it art?
