M HKA Ensembles

Object, 126 x 63 x 53 cm .

Collection: Collection Joseph, Foundation MUSAE, Bredene.

'This was no simple matter!  First of all, there was way too much current.  You were just blown out from under!  And when you eventually got deep enough, then that helmet would ascend with a lot of power.  It literally pulled you with 22 kilos on your head, and that was nuts!  After a while the lower edge of the helmet was right under your nose instead of under your chin!  I hadn't foreseen that.' - Panamarenko

Although Panamarenko had already made the Whale and Crocodiles in the 1960s (works that belonged to his silent objects), he did not create his first real device for use in the water until 1990. This sophisticated diving suit, which he
called the Portuguese Man of War, is intended for walking over the gentle slopes of the seabed.
The diving suit has a plastic dome helmet and a small cylinder pump, ten centimetres in diameter, to be worn on the back. The helmet is supplied with oxygen by a cylinder with a piston that goes up and down, a four-litre bladder that
serves as an extra lung, and a flexible hose that floats on the water surface. Panamarenko tested the diving suit in 1990 in the Maldives, as we can see in the colour illustration that completes the installation.