ZURICH.- The associative networks Allan Sekula (1951-2013) constructs to capture and salvage maritime trade are as far-flung as they are finely woven.

At this very moment, some 100 000 ocean-going vessels are under way, transporting just about everything we need to lead the lives to which we are accustomed. Worldwide, around 1.5 million stevedores are employed to load and unload those ships. Despite its scale, this form of commerce, as slow-moving as it is indispensable, is an essentially unknown quantity. Or are the world's oceans, in the words of the artist, a "forgotten space"?

In his Dockers‘ Museum, which can be viewed at the Johann Jacobs Museum from 9 December 2014, Sekula contemplates this forgotten space. The Dockers' Museum is a collection of flotsam: of images, objects and ideas. Among the exhibits is a collection of brightly coloured flags of convenience, which put the container ships and tankers that sail under them virtually beyond the province of the law. Other objects include plastic figurines of dockers that are designed in California and produced in China. This collection of artefacts is framed by a series of photographs and texts entitled Ship of Fools, which Sekula, in an allusion to Sebastian Brant's eponymous satire published in 1494, used to commemorate the MV Global Mariner.

In 1998, the MV Global Mariner was equipped by the International Transport Workers Federation as a floating museum and set off on an 18-month circumnavigation of the globe, visiting ports along the way. The exhibition on board promoted awareness of working conditions at sea and attempted to generate global solidarity for its cause. After its Grand Tour, the freighter collided with a container ship off the coast of Venezuela and sank.

At the end of February, as part of the exhibition curated by Jürgen Bock, we plan to present the book "Ship of Fools / The Dockers' Museum" (published by Hilde Van Gelder with textual contributions by Jürgen Bock, Gail Day, Bart de Baere, Steve Edwards, Allan Sekula, Sally Stein, Alberto Toscano and Hilde Van Gelder) and will hold a conference in the artist's honour.