My MFA Thesis exhibition, Scene of Shipwreck, is a synthesis of my practice as both an object and exhibition maker. Centered around the narrative described by survivors Henri Savigny and Alexandre Corréard of the raft of the French Frigate Medusé, I have constructed a number of rafts to explore context, materiality, and symbolism in a liminal space. The potentiality of both is used for revelation and concealment...or concealment through revelation...or the vice versa. This paper reveals the mask of the historical, philosophical and referential tropes to show their relationship to the emotional or poetic.