Reflections

Words cannot capture my gratitude for Una Chaudhuri and her enthusiasm for 36.5/A Durational Performance with the Sea. I am honored that she has taken it on as a subject, interpreted and articulated the work so beautifully, and gathered such a brilliant and astute group of scholars to illuminate some of the interlocking philosophical, environmental, and aesthetic aspects of the piece. The project began as a personal test of endurance to create a meaningful, time-based image as a metaphor for our changing environment, and it continues because of communal support and effort. I could not create 36.5 without the myriad of local partners, advisors, collaborating artists, and members of the public who have chosen to participate, witness, invest in, contribute, and experience the project in their own way.

Since 2004 I have used the phrase "specific ambiguity" to talk about my aesthetic. It may seem like a paradox, but it means that I am in constant search of the specific potential in any given moment. Ambiguity only works when the possibilities are specific. Each choice I make is based on chance and inevitability. Each possibility will be specific to the people I meet, to the places I encounter, and to anyone who experiences the work. Multiple meanings and possible interpretations may contrast with each other, but they are all equally true. As the project grows, it becomes more specific in its ambiguous nature. This is because, essentially, 36.5 lives in its many contrasts: simplicity and complexity, individual and collective, human and nonhuman, everyday and existential, ancient past and distant future, controlling and letting go, daily survival and long-term survival, local and global, embodied experience and conceptual thinking, live and recorded, analogue and digital, alone and together, stillness and movement. Each essay in this collection focuses on a different aspect of 36.5/A Durational Performance with the Sea and highlights a different choice I've made along the way to hold these contrasts.

Fig 1.

36.5/Bodo Inlet, Kenya, 2019. Many people joined in as the sun started to set. Photo by Swabir Bazaar.

Stacy Alaimo points out the silence and the forming of momentary collectives. I decided to be silent after the initial performance in Maine. While there were several helpful, supportive voices on the shore, it became clear to me that the water must be my primary collaborator and that I had to find new modes of communication. Wearing no electronics, I needed to find a way to know what time it was without having anyone yell across the water. The participatory "human clock" came into play for the first time in San Francisco Bay. I collaborated with local artist-choreographer Sasha Petrenko on creating a movement phrase to be performed as each hour passed. The public was invited to learn the phrase and join in, so the "human clock" grew and shifted each hour, creating a momentary collective on the shore, in the same way that a collective is formed when passersby choose to stand in the water with me.

Alaimo also mentions my clothing as an indicator of "quotidian acts of survival and resilience." When Hurricane Sandy hit New York City, I understood for the first time that our cities were just as vulnerable as our individual bodies. During the nine months between this catastrophic event and 36.5/Bass Harbor in Maine, I had a recurring image playing in my mind: an individual artist, running around New York City trying to make ends meet, while the city sinks beneath her feet.

Fig 2.

36.5/North Sea, Netherlands, 2015. Water managers and governmental officials standing in the water wearing their everyday suits. Screenshot of video work by Sarah Cameron Sunde and Jonas de Witte.

Martin Harries's essay goes into detail about the unpredictability of the tides and connects this irregularity to the risks we are facing with a changing climate. It was during 36.5/North Sea that I first learned that (as Harries puts it) "tidal predictions remain predictions." For the...