HD video, 3:40mins
May 2010
In 1844, Charles Sturt set off with a company of men into the Australian interior. Along with him he brought a boat, hoping to sail it on the great “inland sea” at the centre of the continent, the existence of which he was completely certain.
Had this sea really existed, Sturt would have been hailed as a visionary, a hero true to his convictions in the face of others’ disbelief.
Instead, he is remembered (if at all) as an unfortunate character, the victim of his own boundless but groundless optimism.
All explorers, discoverers, and thinkers live constantly on the edge between genius and failure, between acclaim and ridicule. Where lies the line between visionary optimism and pathetic delusion? The truth is that it is only clear later, sometimes much later.
This work is a tribute to all those who perhaps should have given up, but did not.
