Arandora Star | in collaboration with Jo Frenken, Derek Crook and Seth Crook | stencilprint | 18.0 × 13.5 × 0.2 cm | 100 copies | Centum Nec Plura V | 2019
On Tuesday 2nd July 1940 while on the way to Canada the Arandora Star had been torpedoed off the coast of Ireland by a German submarine. The luxury liner turned troopship had just been converted to a prison ship, equipped with some armaments and overpainted in battleship grey. It was adopting the zigzag course typical of a warship reducing its vulnerability to torpedo fire. On board were 1678 people: Italian, German internees and German prisoners of war, military guards and crew. Less than half of the passengers survived the shipwreck. A few days later one of the 14 rescue boats came ashore at Knockvologan beach, empty. It is still there, under the sand.
In the publication Arandora Star, Derek Crook, Seth Crook, 2 poets of the Ross of Mull and Miek Zwamborn try to get the boat under way again. On the 4th of July 2019, the pamphlet was launched between the two remaining hooks, the only visible evidence of the vessel. A group of 30 locals gathered around the boat and some took their own poetry and stories. Ever since
we gather around the hooks again in the first week of July to honour the victims and to keep the story alive.
Poems: Derek Crook, Miek Zwamborn, Seth Crook
Image/design: Jo Frenken
English translation: Michele Hutchison
Pages: 12
Font: Linotype Cochin
Paper: 120 g/m² Eos 2.0, 300 g/m² Cairn Ribbed Kraft
Print technique: Stencil print
Production: Charles Nypels Lab, Jan Van Eyck Academie, Maastricht
Edition: 100
2019 Centum Nec Plura V