The Steel Beach is my spatial proposition for the future of The Baylander, aimed at making visible the violence of military propaganda in our daily leisure activities. The Baylander, a boat that served in the Vietnam War, has now been transformed into a dockside restaurant and bar at West Harlem Pier.
Besides the history of the warcraft itself, the Baylander has acquired many artefacts from the military to use as furniture and decor over the years.
The act of architecture here serves as a propaganda machine to normalise the abnormal. The artefacts on the Baylander are the reader of violence. The unconscious mixing of leisure experiences with military artefacts becomes a way to normalise the act of war. While we may only see the smoke from the barbecue now, we should also be aware of the invisible smoke from weapons on the other side of this floating vessel.
This spatial narrative will read the accumulation of violence over the years through an overloaded collection of war artefacts, and leisure activities will be restricted. Extracted news of incidents of collateral damage from the Vietnam War and Afghanistan War will be projected onto the body of the boat along with the accumulated artefacts.
At some point in the future, this boat will sink with the artefacts, sinking with its own violence.
