While being on a superyacht allows you to interact with water and sometimes even fly above it even the best superyacht toys don’t allow you to walk on it. However, a new art instillation in Italy will give visitors the chance to walk three kilometres across Lake Iseo.
“The Floating Piers” is the work of Bulgarian artist Christo who has created a walkway between the mainland a pair of islands in the lake. The artist describes the sensation of walking on the platform as the same as “walking on the back of a whale”.
“For the first time, for 16 days, they will walk on the water,” Christo said of the residents of Monte Isolo, which is normally only accessible by boat.
The artist’s team have been working since November assembling and anchoring 220,000 floating poly-ethylene cubes to create the undulating path. The 190 anchors used to secure the path were moved into place by hot air balloons.
The project is now awaiting the final touch — adding yellow fabric that changes colour from red to gold in response to shifting light and humidity level. The instillation will open next week (June 18) and 150 volunteers, including lifeguards, will be posted on piers and boats to ensure the safety of visitors.
Entrance to the spectacle is free and the entire cost of the 15 million euro project has been financed by 80-year-old Christo.
"The project is done for ourselves,” he added. “And if other people like it, it's almost a bonus, very much like a painter who (has) huge big canvases they like to fill it with colour. You don't fill the canvas with colour to please Mr. Smith, Mr. Jones, you fill it with colour because you like to have the joy to see this colour.”
Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude, who died in 2009, originally planned this project for the delta of Rio de la Plata in Argentina. The lake was eventually chosen because of its calm waters and alpine foothills. “Each project finds his right place,” he said.