“Decent into the Maelstrom” was a project by BOX Arts Science based at the London School of Economics and Political Science, instigated by Andrew Harrison whose GolbalYell enterprise now owns the work. The project brought together art, science and complexity using Edgar Allen Poe’s 1841 “Decent into Maelstrom” as a metaphor.

Maelstrom consists of three spiralling quadruple cloths of varying widths, woven in Shetland wool dyed in the colours of the sea as the warp and silk spun copper as the weft to reinforce the structure. The swirling tessellations evoke the tempestuous ocean.