Filip Jonker

Anyone can Build a Boat

“Cardboard isn’t particularly remarkable at first sight, but if you use it to build a tugboat it suddenly becomes rather special and prompts a reevaluation of its qualities as a material. That’s what my work is all about,” says Filip Jonker, who has attracted a great deal of attention with his surprising use of materials since he graduated from the ArtEZ Academy of Art & Design in Eschede in 2006. He previously built a church out of railway tracks, a ‘rubber’ dinghy made of wooden slats, and two shiny grand pianos made of concrete.

He began building his tugboat ‘De Furie’ out of honeycomb cardboard in April 2010 and eventually sailed it from Enschede to London in September. “Anyone can build a boat. I just want to prove that you don’t necessarily need steel to do so,” he explained, before he began building in cardboard version of a tugboat design from 1920. With the help of German company specialized in industrial coatings. He won an innovation-award for the innovation of ‘waterproof honeycombcardboard’. On September 9, Jonker sailed under Tower Bridge aboard ‘De Furie’, with dry feet.