Stabbing the River
2019/2025, film, duration 2’24”, Super 8 colour 4:3, collaboration with Célia Hay, sound by Sophie Oetinger
A quest with an irrational end: stabbing a river. An oneiric gesture towards the landscape captured by the river Seyhan, in Adana. Here, the act of stabbing repeated towards the exhaustion of the subject (the river, or the stabber?), is declinated through an assemblage layering the traces of those strokes. Medium format polaroids merge with film negatives enlarged to the point they become some abstract landscapes resembling the surface of the wounded river, and drawings with instructions on how to stab a river to death: “Hold the water firmly with your left hand”, “hit the surface of the water [with the knife]”, “repeat the gesture until the water stops moving”. The whole body is engaged in a very physical gesture, the repeated stabbing of a constantly renewed flow, a romantic duel with Nature towards a vain exploit. (Text: Célia Hay)
This work was produced in collaboration with Célia Hay during the residency Every Me curated by Mustafa Boğa, in Adana.