The Bottle of Notes by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen has been in Middlesbrough since 1993. Their website includes interesting photos of the construction and transportation of the sculpture

 

The outer text is from the 1768 ships log of Captain James Cook.

“We had every advantage we could desire in observing the whole of the passage of the planet Venus over the Sun’s disc”

The inner text is from a poem written by Coosje van Brugen

“I like to remember seagulls in full flight gliding over the ring of canals.”