Raft: An exhibition at the Royal Overseas League, London

Olczak, Susie ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9615-5514 and Chappell, Louis (2025) Raft: An exhibition at the Royal Overseas League, London. [Show/Exhibition]

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Abstract

RAFT was an exhibition curated by Susie Olczak, that reconsidered the relationship between Britain’s waters and the wider world, through the ongoing movements of people across and between these spaces. The exhibition investigated how people thought about the role of water in relation to diasporas in different places. It challenged audiences to rethink this in ways that strengthened international relations rather than breaking them down. The exhibition’s name, RAFT, was highly symbolic. A raft was a small vessel used to move across water and represented a journey. Rafts were often stored and inflated when required, or made in ways that were contingent on need. They were used both for adventure and for survival. The exhibition considered the nature of rafts and the media's prevalent use of images of them by presenting different perspectives surrounding them as objects. In the same way that rafts could acquire different meanings, so too were migrants given various meanings by different people at different times and subjected to unfair hierarchies. Just as the raft had been adapted to different purposes, so too had societies across the world. For example, structures such as tents had been employed by the homeless, by holidaymakers and by refugees. The exhibition drew parallels between ongoing societal adaptation and the intuitive processes through which artists produced their artworks. Within the exhibition, recurring motifs such as flags and vessels appeared in different forms. There were also artworks that emphasised acts of tying or hanging items. The exhibition RAFT was both timely and important. Throughout history, people had frequently migrated to different places to seek a better life. ‘RAFT’ aimed to shed new light on dominant historical narratives and to open them up for discussion, while rethinking London and Great Britain’s centrality within this discourse. The idea of a journey was further referenced in the exhibition space at ROSL, where works were hung around a central staircase.

Item Type:	Show/Exhibition
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Britain's waters; wider world; movement of people
Related records:	Displaced Arts: Creative Practices and G...
Subjects:	N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR
Divisions:	Schools and Research Institutes > School of Arts, Culture and Environment
Depositing User:	Susie Olczak
Date Deposited:	01 Apr 2026 11:35
Last Modified:	01 Apr 2026 11:35
URI:	https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/15964

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