August 10, 2015: 8:15am-9:01pm
After the initial three performances, the live performance had found its form and the decision was made to execute at least six more iterations in bodies of water off of six continents, including New York City. It was decided that the next and fourth performance would take place in the Netherlands, a country experiancing and adapting to sea level rise in a way unseen by the location of the first three performances.
With this fourth iteration in the Netherlands, the project found its form as an autonomous video work as well. The concept was to film the entire performance in real time, edit as a durational video work of the same length, and then show a large-scale multi-channel video installation at the performance’s location within two weeks of the performance. This is the form and practice that the subsequent five iterations would take.
For this iteration, Sunde’s primary partnership was with TAAK, the Dutch organization for art in public spaces in the Netherlands. She also had a formal residency with Satellietgroep to execute the project in the North Sea. Additionally, she collaborated with Aziz Bekkaoui, a local fashion designer who created the red dress she wore in the last six performances, and Jonas de Witte, a local cinematographer who captured the entire 12 hour 46 minute performance in real time.
Eight days after the performance took place, the durational video (12 hours, 46 minutes), was exhibited as a two-channel video installation in Amsterdam at four locations as a cultural part of SAIL Amsterdam, a festival which took place from August 19th to August 23rd, 2015. The four locations included De Appel, Marineterrein, Oude Kerk + Pakhuis de Zwijger.
Sunde received funding from Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst, Netherlands America Foundation, Ten Cate, and over 75 individual sponsors to complete the work.
This performance involved the most public participation yet: 47 people joined Sunde in the water, 55 participated in the Human Clock, several hundreds gathered to watch the final moments on shore, and over 5,000 people encountered the live performance and/or the video work. The work garnered major press attention in national publications and local and national leaders in the field of water management and government participated in the public performance.
photos by Jonas de Witte for 36.5 / Netherlands
36.5 / NORTH SEA, 2015, 3 MINUTE EXCERPT FROM 12 HOUR, 46 MINUTES (SPLIT-SCREEN TO REPRESENT 2 CHANNELS)
36.5 / North Sea
Katwijk aan Zee, The Netherlands
Fourth Work in Series
by Sarah Cameron Sunde
with TAAK + Satellietgroep
Nils van Beek & Jacqueline Heerema (curators), Jonas de Witte (cinematographer), John Del Gaudio (producer)
Other key collaborators include: Helma Hogervorst, Frank Bloem, Aziz Bekkaoui, Carrie Dimaculangen,Bjorn Jansen, Sophia Zürcher, Ronald Boer, Joshua Dumas, Max Radermacher, Stacey Engels, Lies de Jager, Julie Örtegon + Saori Tahara with many thanks to the artists at Locatie Z, Surfles.nl, Aloha Surf, DeBeslagkom, and our friends at the Hotel Savoy for being such generous hosts, participants, contributors and advisors!
SOME KEY PRESS COVERING THE NORTH SEA ITERATION:
Following the Amsterdam exhibtion, the 36.5 / North Sea durational video work won First Prize at the Creative Climate Awards in New York City (2015) and was shown on a small scale in group shows at the Taipai Economic & Cultural Center (2015) and Spitzer School of Architecture (2016) and Momenta at Atlas Studios (2017). It was shown on a large-scale, site-specifically in The Netherlands at Oerol Festival in 2016 and together with subsequent iterations ever since.