Bodies of Water
Water is at the genesis of my current artistic practice. It is both my muse and my sage.
I grew up on the coast. The beach and swimming pools have been central to my life, both culturally and physically. I am a person of salt and chlorine.
Living beside the Brisbane River, Maiwar, and swimming laps at the local pool gives me a daily sense of water-place.
I am currently working on The Water Diaries, where the fluid motion of water is stilled by the camera lens and overlaid with the written word.
My use of text arises from an internal dialogue I have with water. What would water say if it had the agency of a voice? What memory and stories does it hold? How can it help me empathise with the more-than-human world in ways outside my own human perspective?
Water embodies connection and reciprocity. Both an acknowledgement of the water I come from and a responsibility to the water I pass on.
We are all bodies of water, continually dissolving into other bodies of water – the air, the ocean, other living things. This transmutation of H2O both ‘into’ and ‘out of’ my anatomy, beyond my skin, forms a profound fluid belonging to the planet.