A Modern Odyssey, 2012
“A Modern Odyssey” is a project made during a journey on the cargo ship Nordic Odyssey, transporting 70,000 tons of iron ore from the Russian port city Murmansk. It waded through the ice of the Arctic waters, led by an icebreaker, then crossed foggy Bering Strait and continued along the far-eastern parts of Russia and Japan before arriving to a newly built port on the shore of China.
The trip took place in July and beginning of August of 2012 and lasted around one month. There were only 23 people on board of a ship 225 meters long, weighting around 40,000 tons – five Ukrainians officers, one ice pilot from Russia and seventeen Filipino seafarers.
At first this journey seemed to be a unique chance to experience extraordinary landscapes and route (it’s only two years since it has been opened to navigation due to an increasing melting of ice caused by global warming). Though very soon the physical movement from one point to another becomes a journey into one’s consciousness and inward world.
“Life is whatever we make it. The traveler is the journey. What we see is not what we see but who we are” – Fernando Pessoa, “The book of Disquiet”.
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