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One morning last summer in the Polish port city of Gdynia, there was a crowd on the quay at sunrise. There was a strange yet familiar shape to marvel at. Suspended high: the unmistakable outline of an early 911, its faded red body almost entirely covered in coral and seaweed.
Porsche ahoy
Contrary to what was initially assumed, the amazed onlookers did not witness the overdue salvage of a missing Porsche. Rather, it was a one-of-a-kind installation by conceptual artists Ada Zielinska and Rafal Dominik for the annual Gdynia Design Days art festival. Playing on the themes of the 2022 festival - ocean and climate change - the artists created a fantastic vision of an artificial reef, weaving an air-cooled 911 and a dreamy narrative of what this precious car would look like if left for generations the Baltic Sea.
“It all started when Porsche invited us to create an installation for Design Days,” Zielinska recalls. “Rafal and I wanted to create something that connects Porsche with the sea. We were inspired by Damien Hurst's exhibition at the 2017 Venice Biennale, which featured ancient artifacts apparently from the sea and covered in coral. These days reefs are created from old cars and sunken ships and we thought the idea of recreating a classic 911 and exhibiting it right by the sea was interesting.”
Find a car for such an artistic journey
The first challenge was probably also the greatest: finding a vehicle for such an extraordinary artistic journey. Marek Sworowski, Marketing Director at Porsche Poland, set out to find a Porsche owner who would agree to watch the car transform, albeit temporarily, into an artificial reef.
"It was difficult to find someone who would let us do this with their car," admits Sworowski with a grin. “We narrowed the search to contacts whose cars were in need of restoration. So when we found a 1973 911T, it seemed like the right choice. No matter what layer, everyone would recognize the well-known 911 shape.”
For Zielinska and Dominik, the artistic process consisted of creating artificial coral structures from crushed shells and using 3D printing and gluing them to the surface of the car in meticulous and intensive two weeks of work. Upon completion, the car was no longer recognizable as the sleek F-Series Touring that had been quietly awaiting restoration a few days earlier. “The owner had a lot of confidence in our approach,” adds Sworowski. “He was really behind the project. He just asked us not to actually dump his car in the sea."
Revealed at the Gdynia Design Days festival
When the finished work, titled 'Sunken Romance', was first seen at the Gdynia Design Days - being hoisted over the harbor by a crane - onlookers were immediately mesmerized. "A lot of people were pretty shocked," reports Zielinska. “They really thought the car had been recovered from the sea. People flocked from all directions, pulled out their cell phones and took pictures.”
The installation quickly became an internet hit among Porsche fans and artists. But after the festival ended and the coral layer was removed, the car was soon returned to its owner so that the restoration could begin. The success of the project led Zielinska to approach Porsche again and propose a short film showing the imaginary backstory to the 'Sunken Romance'. The result, directed by Zielinska and Dominik Panasiuk, is a surreal cinematic exploration of forbidden love between mermaids and humans, classic cars and their devoted drivers.
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Porsche ahoy: underwater adventures of an air-cooled 911
Photo credit: Porsche
