Axel Straschnoy (born 1978) is a visual artist and filmmaker from Buenos Aires, based in Helsinki. His work deals with the social practices surrounding objects of knowledge.
In 1897, S. A. Andrée and his crew set out to reach the North Pole on an aerostatic hydrogen balloon. After traversing a few hundred kilometres, they were forced to land on the ice and died on their way back to civilisation. Still, Andrée is one of Sweden explorer-heroes and a museum in his honour was built in his birthplace, Gränna.
For Float, I launched a buoy into the Norwegian current in honour of S. A. Andrée, hoping that one day it will make it to the North Pole, Andrée’s unattained destination.
“Borges writes in Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote about a man who set down to write a book and rewrote Quixote by chance. In this spirit Straschnoy launched the buoy, in the spirit of the improbable but possible act—a spirit that marked Andrée’s expedition, if not on a conscious level on a very real one.”
Jonatan Habib Engqvist