Technology

Peer into a giant, half-formed ship that can hold 18,000 containers

This image of an enormous ship under construction features in a new book and show that challenge common ideas about beauty - while the real ship may help cut carbon emissions

11 March 2020

Photographer
Alastair Philip Wiper

IMAGINE standing in a space big enough to hold more than 18,000 containers full of consumer goods.

“My strongest memory was the scale,” says photographer Alastair Philip Wiper of his experience in 2014 shooting the construction of a Maersk Triple E, then the world’s biggest container ship. “The shipyard was the size of a small city. Huge ship sections were moved on cranes, welded and painted by people who looked tiny.”

This image of a cross-section of the ship features in his latest book, Unintended Beauty, and it is part of the Forms of…