Reliquary Afatasi

The Journey Series is an ongoing body of sculptural maquettes centered on the recurring form of the vessel. Emerging from salvaged steel, these hand-welded works reduce the boat to its essential forms, exploring movement, passage, and the ways people, memory, and lineage are carried across time.

Process Note
The Journey Series grew from the material itself. While working with salvaged steel, I found myself repeatedly drawn to a triangular offcut that naturally suggested the shape of a sail. Rather than forcing the material into preconceived forms, I began following what the steel was already offering. Over time, the vessel became a recurring motif within my practice—a form discovered as much as designed.

Journey Series: Foundational Works (2021) represents the earliest sculptural explorations of the vessel within Afatasi’s practice. Created before the formal establishment of the Journey Series, these hand-welded maquettes reveal the visual language that would later evolve into one of the artist’s enduring bodies of work.

Journey Series I (2022) marks the inaugural body of vessel sculptures within the Journey Series. These hand-welded maquettes established the foundational vocabulary of the vessel as a recurring form within Afatasi’s sculptural practice. Following their creation, select works entered the public through Finders Keepers, where they became community-held objects, carrying the history of the series beyond the Reliquary and into private stewardship.

Journey Series II (2023) builds upon the visual language established in Journey Series I, continuing the exploration of the vessel as a recurring sculptural form. Through hand-welded steel maquettes, the series considers the boat as an enduring symbol of movement, passage, and the journeys that carry people, memory, and lineage across time.