In Shipbreak, at the end of the 1990s an American merchant ship is scrapped and recycled in Bangladesh after its last voyage. It is the story of a freighter that, arriving at its final destination, becomes a touchstone for a series of people: the American shipbuilders who built it in the early 1960s, the sailors who worked on it for forty years, and the ship-breakers in Bangladesh who dismantled it mainly by hand. But also for the many people in the delta who fashion a sea of everyday objects from the metal, screws, chains and wires of the dismantled freighter — their attempt to take part in the economy, their contribution to the country's infrastructure. Shipbreak describes how a ship, viewed holistically, can above all be one thing: a livelihood. Reproductions of the ship's designs, images of its repair, and pictures of the scrapping and the resulting recycled objects tell the life of this American merchant ship — a vessel that sailed the high seas for forty years and lives on today in the form of shovel, scissors, drumstick, mortar and Shiva sculpture.