Stavronikita Project

More than 30 years ago, the Greek freighter SS Stavronikita was sunk off Barbados in the Caribbean. The sea created a habitat from the ship, on which a maritime biodiversity of corals, sponges and shells has settled over the decades.
From this lushness, Andreas Franke has created collages with photographs staged in the studio that mime one of the most decadent eras in our history: the Rococo.
Preppy ladies enjoying their dissolute lives at a depth of 25 meters between shoals of fish and coral colonies turn the images into works that construct an extraordinary underwater world in their eccentric depiction.