What is the water saying?

Headlands is pleased to host What is the water saying?, a screening curated by the Wattis Institute of Contemporary Arts and featuring video work by Carolina Caycedo, Sky Hopinka, Arjuna Neuman & Denise Ferreira, Thao Nguyen Phan, and Charwei Tsai.

For thousands of years people lived in harmony with water, expressing a reverence and respect for the earth’s vast oceans, placid lakes, and coursing rivers. Only recently has society pivoted toward violently taming and manipulating these bodies of water, motivated by avarice and domination.

Spanning geography and time, the works featured consider the effects of human intervention on bodies of water, and in particular the negative impact on local and Indigenous communities.

Featuring:

Sky Hopinka, Kunįkága Remembers Red Banks, Kunįkága Remembers the Welcome Song (2014, 9:20 min);

Carolina Caycedo, A Gente Rio [The People River] (2016, 29:29 min);

Thao Nguyen Phan, Becoming Alluvium (2019–20, 16:40 min);

Charwei Tsai, Lanyu—Three Stories (2012, 12:00 min);

Arjuna Neuman and Denise Ferreira da Silva, 4 Waters-Deep Implicancy (2018, 30 min)

This is the thirteenth event in Wattis Institute of Contemporary Arts’ year-long season dedicated to thinking about our contemporary moment through the lens of Chilean artist and poet Cecilia Vicuña’s work.

Light snacks will be available for this nighttime event, but visitors should plan to pack any meals in and out as well as prepare for cool evening weather.

[Image: Video still from Becoming Alluvium by Thao Nguyen Phan]