The Stranger’s Boat (1996) is part of the series Flowing, presented at Izabella Gustowska’s 1996 solo exhibition at Zachęta. Printed on photosensitive canvas, the photographic image of a naked woman was stretched over a wooden frame and then filled with synthetic cotton. This gave the photograph the three-dimensional quality of a real body. The female figure was attached to a long metal boat. A small display screen is seen above her outstretched arms. The sculpture reflects the artist’s interest in the element of water, its material and symbolic properties. This is demonstrated not only by giving the piece the form of a boat, but also by immersing it in a green neon light, reminiscent of light filtered through water and the oceanic depths. Gustowska evokes the dual nature of water, which, as materia prima, is the source of life, but is also associated with death, bringing soothing oblivion (the mythological river Lethe). The element of water is also associated with the concept of sleep — a state on the border between life and death. In water and in sleep, the body of the unknown woman is submerged, floating and levitating, ‘tightly swathed in a transparent, all-encompassing mass’ (Izabella Gustowska). Alicja Kępińska wrote: ‘Flowing appears as a permanent state in all its variability; nothing calls for awakening from this sleep. Movement here develops inwards, it is a form of descent into oneself. Water is also a mirror of the soul.’