Artivist Series -Sarah Cameron Sunde
interdisciplinary environmental art
Sarah received the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship for her nine-part series 36.5/A Durational Performance with the Sea. This work has been performed on six continents in places as far flung as New Zealand, Kenya, Brazil, Bangladesh, Netherlands, and New York City. Sarah’s intention is to connect humans with water and the impact of climate change. During each site specific performance she stands in the water for a full tidal (12.5+ hours) cycle. The rise and fall of the tide on her body is reflective of what has occurred in nature in the ancient past and will continue to do unrelentingly into the future.
Video conversation with Sarah…click here
What Sarah talks about…
Sarah grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. As a kid she was mostly involved with music and theater. She went to a really creative elementary school that encouraged students to find alternative ways to study. It had a big influence on the way she thinks about things. Her interest in water came about with the advent of Hurricane Sandy (October 2012). She saw that New Yorkers were disconnected from water and how vulnerable they were. With Sandy she came to understand what the impact of sea level rise and New York’s low geography meant. It became very real that the city could be lost overnight. Hurricane Sandy flooded 50 square miles. It gave new meaning to the impacts of sea level rise. As these numbers get more and more dire, what can be done to reduce the consequences. Part of the problem is that people weren’t paying attention to the water which is problematic as New Yorkers are surrounded by water. Another thing she’s learned is that people don’t know what a tidal cycle is. The amount of time that it takes for the tide to fully rise and fall (roughly 12 hours, 25 minutes).
36.5/A durational performance has many meanings but the most basic is that Sarah began the first performance on the day she turned 35 ½ years old. She also likes the title because it is ambiguous. Other related meanings are the length of a year and human body temperature in Celsius degrees.
When she was up in Maine she realized that the tides could be a metaphor for environmental change. One day she was watching as a rock slowly got covered by the water and then the water slowly receded. She began to think that this could be an incredible performance. Her first performance was in Maine. Sarah walked out at low tide and over the course of the full tidal cycle it rose to her chin and then receded. Thus, began the series because as she stood there Sarah thought about how humans are all connected through the water. She made a promise to herself that if she made it through the full cycle she’d have to figure out how to connect with people in other places across the globe. How are other people in different areas facing climate challenges thinking and feeling about what is going on?
Sarah wasn’t prepared her first performance for the cold temperature of the water. She wore an ill-fitting wet suit and she had looked up ways of resisting hyperthermia. She admitted that first performance in Maine was cold and painful. The struggle of it was profound for her. Although there is a history of artists putting themselves into painful situations, she’d never had that impulse before. But metaphorically it felt right as it related to the climate crisis and listening to the water.
Sarah has done the performance nine times in nine different sites. They are performances made in collaboration with local communities. Each work is very different based on the site and the people who she collaborates with at each place. During each tidal cycle Sarah focuses on her senses especially what she is feeling and being in the present moment. However, she also thinks about the ancient past and the future. What was that spot like in the past and what it will be like in the future. She doesn’t get bored because there is so much to take in and to think about. Her biggest challenge has been to just get a performance done, to find sites on all six continents and to find collaborators. She’s had to be patient waiting for the right connection and also to learn to let go. Covid presented its own challenge to get a performance made. In NYC, the biggest challenge was fear. People feared the water. There’s a deep fear of litigation. You’re not supposed to just walk into the water.
She filmed six (Netherlands, Bangladesh, Brazil, Kenya, New Zealand, and NY) of the durational performances in real time. Her dream is to have an exhibit where all six “live” together in the same space with big screens, each with two channels.
Sarah’s advice to anyone who wants to make a difference is to listen and spend time with the water. After Hurricane Sandy many more artists are turning their attention toward water. Sarah has co-founded in 2017 a small nonprofit called works on water with an idea that we as artists had to gather to work on and with the water. Everybody not just artists need to spend more time with water. Sarah has been inspired by her indigenous collaborators who bring to the conversation concepts of reciprocity and gratitude and not taking anything for granted, asking permission before doing something in relationship to water. Sarah encourages people to learn about indigenous ways and support indigenous leaders. And, find your own way to connect with water.
Show Notes
00:00:06 Pam Ferris-Olson Today on the Women Mind the Water Artist Series on womenmindthewater.com, I'm speaking with Sarah Cameron Sunde an interdisciplinary environmental artist who makes site specific works. Today on Women Mind the Water we'll focus on Sarah's work on and with bodies of water. She received the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship to complete her ongoing series 36.5/ A Durational Performance with the Sea. This work has been performed in places as far-flung as New Zealand, Kenya and New York City. Sarah's intention is to break down barriers between humans and what she refers to as the more than human world. 00:00:39 The Women Mind the Water Artivist Series podcast on womenmindthewater.com engages artists in conversation about their work and explores their connection with the ocean. Through their stories, Women Mind the Water hopes to inspire and encourage action to protect the ocean and her creatures.
Today on the Women Mind the Water Artivist series and womenmindthewater.com, I am pleased to introduce Sarah Cameron Sunde, an interdisciplinary environmental artist who has shared her work with audiences across the globe. Today we will focus on work that first took root as Sarah watched the tide go in and out. She wondered what it would be like if her body, like the shore, was swallowed and then reemerged with the tide. Sarah created 9 performances on 6 continents since she began 36.5/A Durational Performance with the Sea.
00:01:54 Welcome, Sarah, I am impressed by your vision, commitment and artistry. In addition to understanding your artistic journey, I'd like to explore how an act like standing in water can be so impactful. Your title performances speak to the vulnerability of the natural world and the relentlessness of time. Tell us about your early years.
00:02:12 Sarah Cameron Sunde Well, I grew up in the Bay Area in California. As a kid I was mostly involved in music and theater. I started singing at a very young age and I really loved that. And then and I think I went to a really creative school, an alternative elementary school that really just encouraged us to find alternate ways of study. So I did. I think that had a big influence on me growing up and the way that I think about things.
00:02:50 Pam Ferris-Olson So has water always played a seminal role in your relationship with the world?
00:02:59 Sarah Cameron Sunde It was really when Hurricane Sandy hit that I understood how much I needed to work with water or that it became such an important part of my practice.
00:03:20 Pam Ferris-Olson So as an artist based in New York City, I wonder how much connection you think city drillers have with water. For example, awhile back I interviewed Taji Riley and Sam de Los Santos for the Women Mind the Water Artivist Series podcast. When they were in high school, these two young women from the Bronx participated in the rocking the boat after school program. Taji and Sam said they had little awareness of the Bronx River or the natural world that was on the river's banks until they were involved in the Rocking the Boat program. Would you say this lack of awareness of the city's waterways is probably the norm for New York City dwellers?
00:03:48 Sarah Cameron Sunde Yes, absolutely. I love Rocking the Boat by the way. That organization is amazing and yeah, I think that's sort of what happened to me when Hurricane Sandy hit. I started to understand that we as New Yorkers were so disconnected from the water. We had no idea that this was coming and that we were so vulnerable. I had heard before, you know, people had told me about how vulnerable we were as a city being so close to water, being surrounded by water. And with sea level rise. The land and the water are about the same level. I didn't quite understand what that meant or how that it could impact us. Maybe intellectually I understood that we are vulnerable for sea level rise in a long term future. But then when Sandy happened and I got it. You know, this idea that we could lose our city overnight became very real to me. The vulnerability to extreme weather events that can really wipe out so much infrastructure, flood and kill people and homes. Hurricane Sandy flooded 50 square miles of New York City, and that it can happen overnight. And that it will happen more and more with the climate crisis and then also what that means in the long term for the world with sea level rise and how those numbers are getting more and more dire.
00:05:44 What are we going to do? You know this idea that New York can disappear in my lifetime or that we might have to abandon the city in my lifetime, became very real for me and I understood that part of the problem was that we just weren't paying attention to the water, you know as New Yorkers we just don't even realize it.
Also another interesting thing that I've realized is that most people in New York, really smart people, do not know how long a title cycle is, that it's not part of awareness of most people.
00:06:31 Pam Ferris-Olson I grew up in New York and you know that, you know, the tide goes in and out, but you don't really get it until you, like I did, move to Maine. The tidal shift is 10-12 feet. And if you go a little farther north to say the Bay of Fundy, it can shift 40 or 50 feet. So you really get an idea.
It might be helpful here if you describe your 36.5/ A Durational Performance with the Sea. But before you describe that what is the significance of the number 36.5.
00:07:02 Sarah Cameron Sunde The performances began on the day that I turned 36 1/2. It's a very personal reason that it's titled 36.5 but also the number is ambiguous enough that people might think it kind of relates to 365 days of the year. It’s also the body temperature in Celsius, just a little below normal body temperature. And so I find it an evocative number, you know. I know it's sort of challenging, but it was something that really came to me as soon as I understood that this performance was what I was going to do. I was up in Maine and I realized that the tides could be a metaphor for environmental change.
00:08:01 And so one day, it was on a Monday, that I was watching this rock slowly get covered by the water, being enveloped by the water and then slowly receding. And I realized that was interesting and I thought this would be an incredible performance, that I think I need to do this. I'm telling you, probably too much of the origin story. Basically the project is I walked out there in Maine at low tide. I let the water rise up to my chin. And then it went back down again. Over the course of 12 hours and 48 minutes. And that began a series because as I was out there in the water, I started to really understand how connected we all are through the water. The water connects every single being on this planet, but I felt it in my body in a really different way than I had ever felt before. And so I made this promise to myself as I was out there. That if I if I made it through the 12 hours and 48 minutes that I would have to figure out how to connect with people on the other side of the planet and make the work in collaboration with them. That it would be a series, and I would have to go around the world and create this performance with them. Because if I'm this little artist in New York who is realizing that we need to rejigger our relationship with water, what is somebody in Bangladesh or in Kenya or, you know, anywhere around the world who is facing some of these climate challenges. What are they thinking and feeling about what's happening right now? And so that's how it. That's how it all grew.
00:10:03 Pam Ferris-Olson Sarah, the Gulf of Maine even in the summertime is cold. I mean water temperatures in the Gulf of Maine are about 30° or more colder than our body temperature. So what did you do to prepare yourself for being exposed to cold water for that extended period?
00:10:22 Sarah Cameron Sunde Well, that first time I was really ignorant. I was not prepared. I wore a friend's wet suit that was ill fitting and we looked up, you know, ways of resisting hypothermia. And there were some little tactics that we used, but yeah, it was cold and it was painful. It was the struggle of it that was so profound for me.
You know, recognizing how this one struggle over the course of one day, the implications of that and what it meant to actually, you know, put my body in that place of survival, of trying to survive. Physically, you know there's a long history of performance art that deals with, you know, pain and challenge in that way. And I've never had the impulse to do that before. Or that's not usually my interest in causing pain, putting pain in myself, but there was something that metaphorically felt so right to, you know, because of what it could say in relationship to the climate crisis and relationship to decentering.Our human experience and listening to the water and really having another connection I realized we hadn't been listening to the water.
00:11:49 Pam Ferris-Olson I think I'd wonder if there were any sharks nearby or how much longer I had left to stand there. What did you think during that time?
00:12:12 Sarah Cameron Sunde Each time I've done it, I've done the performance 9 times. I was gonna go back and say a very brief description of the project. I didn't do a very good job because I started with an origin story. But you know, 36.5/ A Durational Performance at the Sea is a series of nine site specific performances and video artwork that have been made in collaboration with communities around the world where I have stood in bodies of water for a full title cycle. I walk out at low tide. The water rises up to my chin and then it goes back down again over the course of 12 to 13 hours. Each one, each work is a very different event based on who I meet and who ends up collaborating with me. And it's been this big, long, important, seminal work for me. It's really changed my trajectory. But to go back to your question about what I think about, you know that first time it was the newness of it. I was just really taking it all in and each time it's been.
I sometimes work through my sensory experiences. What am I seeing? What am I feeling? What am I hearing? What am I tasting, smelling and especially, especially feeling like trying to feel the water on my body and sort of feel that shift. Really be in that present moment with it. I'm also thinking about the past and the future, the ancient past. Trying to think in deep time geologic time, what this spot site specific spot where I am. What it has been, what it will be .
00:14:23 Taken all the influences. It's really amazing. You know, people have often asked me, do I get bored? And I say no because there's when you slow down and stand still and really focus on taking it in. There is so much to pay attention to.
00:14:44 Pam Ferris-Olson What was the most difficult challenge that you've had to overcome in all of your site specific works?
00:14:51 Sarah Cameron Sunde Ohh, there's so many you know. I think, on one level there's the challenge of the physical struggle of the day on the other level like when I think about the big picture of the project.
So much of it has been about the challenges of just getting it done. You know, I had this vision and that I needed to do this work, make this work in collaboration with communities in bodies of water off of all six continents.
Just being patient and waiting for, you know, waiting for the right connection to come into play. And then also letting go of certain things. I think in some ways it was very challenging that COVID put a pause on the last two performances. The challenges have all led to things that now are just so inherent in what the work is. I learned in New York City, the big theme became in many ways, it became about fear and people's fear of the water. There's a deep fear of litigation, and in New York City, you're not really supposed to walk into the water because that's just the rule. And there's lots of people who are working to change that. And how do we, as artists and citizens, make things that allow us to question what's going on or how. How do we change? How do we change things here?
00:16:47 Pam Ferris-Olson So what's next for you?
00:16:49 Sarah Cameron Sunde These six durational video artworks, I filmed six of them in real time. All the international works, Netherlands, Bangladesh, Brazil, Kenya, and Altiero, New Zealand and then New York City. We filmed in real time and turned that into durational video, works that are the same length as the performance. So my dream is to have an exhibition where all six durational works can live together in the same space with big screens and two channels each. Big 12 channel circular installation is what I'm going for.
00:17:32 Pam Ferris-Olson So what advice do you have for listeners who want to make a difference? How do you think they can engage best in the conversation?
00:17:40 Sarah Cameron Sunde I think it's really about listening and spending time with the water. You know in New York since Hurricane Sandy happened, there's been so many more people, so many more artists are turning to water. Sites of or material a place to work. I co-founded in 2017, a small nonprofit and triennial called Works on Water with this idea that we had to gather as artists who were working on and with the water. It's time we need to kind of help each other and get that out there. I know not everyone's an artist, but if you are an artist and you have any creativity, I encourage you to work with water. As in some ways I think everybody just needs to spend more time paying attention. Yeah, listening. I've been really inspired by my indigenous collaborators around the world who have taught me about reciprocity and gratitude and not taking anything for granted and asking permission before doing something in relationship to the water. So I think learning about indigenous leaders who are really leading the way.
In terms of how we jigger our society to be more respectful. The water, the land, everything, the trees, all living species. So I say read, read up, support the indigenous leaders near you. Learn about them and find your own way to connect with the water. That's the most important thing.
00:19:47 Pam Ferris-Olson All very good advice. So Sarah, thanks for being on the Wo(men) Mind the Water Artivist Series podcast. I expect listeners have gained a greater understanding of the work that goes into the creation of performative art.
I'd like to remind listeners that I've been speaking with Sarah Cameron Sunde an interdisciplinary environmental artist whose works connect humans with the world they live in and explore the world's rapidly changing conditions. Sarah is the latest guest on the Wo(man) Mind the Water Artivist Series podcast. The series can be viewed on Wo(men) Mind the Water.com and on Museum on Main Street and YouTube. An audio only version of this podcast is available on womenmindthewater.com and on iTunes and Spotify. Wo(men) Mind the Water is grateful to Jane Rice for the use of her song Women of Water. All rights for the Women Mind the Water name and logo belong to Pam Ferris-Olson. This is Pam Ferris-Olson.