By any measure, it was a strange affair. Last month, a large group of people gathered on the shore of a small salt lake in Siwa, a remote oasis in the Sahara desert, to witness the maiden voyage of a 20ft sailboat made from reeds and palm leaves.

More than 300km from the nearest river, this modest stretch of water in Egypt has never before been graced by a vessel of any kind. Not that this boat could float. Buoyed by inflatable pontoons hidden beneath the surface, the ship was a work by Russia’s most famous and influential living artists, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov.

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