Waterborne at ANTI Contemporary Art Festival this September
French & Mottershead, Waterborne, Estuary 2016. Photo: Briony Campbell
Following acclaimed premier at Estuary Biennial 2016, we are taking Waterborne to Kuopio, Finland, as part of ANTI Contemporary Art Festival on the 21st – 24th Sep 2017.
“It’s a uniquely unnerving experience but for some reason, as we disembark… all those who have been through it appear uplifted. Perhaps thankful they haven’t drowned, but definitely enriched by what is a genuinely remarkable piece.”
– Caught by the River
Waterborne is an audio work that uses lyrical narrative to describe the afterlife of the human body in water.
The work invites the listener to imagine and relocate their body below the surface, as it decays and dislocates on a journey from an urban canal, via a tidal river, and out to sea. Created using insights gathered from forensic anthropologists and ecologists, Waterborne reminds us we are bodies of water, and evokes ideas of migration and displacement, and of loss and regeneration.
Specifically for ANTI 2017, the curators, Johanna Tuukkanen & Gregg Whelan, have built a programme of artworks around water, that will appear all over the city and respond to the politics and poetics of water, and the place it has in our lives.
Waterborne can be experienced on a footbridge connecting two islands looking out over Lake Kallavesi, from where it is technically possible to drift through inland waterways and the Saimaa Canal, to reach the Baltic Sea. It will be available in Finnish and English, and participation is free with no booking required.
Prior to the showing, French & Mottershead artist Andrew Mottershead will be talking be talking aquatic forensics and watery bodies at ANTI’s Politics and Poetics of Water Seminar on Wed 20th September.
Dates & Times:
Thu-Fri, 21st-22nd Sep, 14.00-19.00
Sat 23rd Sep, 10.00-16.00
Sun 24th Sep, 10.00-14.00
Venue: Bridge between Rönö and Varvisaari islands | Varvisaarentie Street 10
Waterborne is one of four audio works from French & Mottershead’s Afterlife series, and has been developed with support from The Wellcome Trust and Arts Council England.