(UVic) University of Victoria: Becoming Sky & Becoming Water

Becoming Sky - Becoming Water is a field-research that began (along with The Rain and Other Forests, and One Day on the Long Beach) during my visiting scholar session with University of Victoria in British Colombia which focused on collecting data for Conversations with Landscapes: The Ocean, Weather, and the Atmosphere . Similarly to all my projects that started on the break of 2020-2021 – supported by FRQSC (Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Société et Culture (FRQSC) – research on Becoming Sky & Becoming Water were put on hold due to sudden events of COVID-19 which disrupted my return visit to Vancouver Island. I continue the development of this specific work, despite this disruption, pursue the process of acquiring additional funding, to complete the more technologically and logistically demanding parts through federal and provincial granting institutions CALQ (Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec) and (CCA) Canada Council for the Arts to be able to return to the Victoria – and continue my work.

Becoming Sky & Becoming Water continues the series of work titled Conversations of Landscapes which follows performance beyond the stages of theatres and exhibition halls and views the actions of nature, such as the weather, tides, or the growth of flora, and/or the behaviours of fauna, in itself, as performance. It strives to understand how local communities respond to climatic changes and how these experiences can be woven into the very performance fabric that inspires audiences to become the agency that activates the ultimate performance of landscape, in the context of global ecologies within technologically driven scenographic environments – as a construct of human and non-human agency.

Becoming Sky – Becoming Water sprouts within the larger umbrella of Conversations with Landscapes and explores how the weather conditions at the bay…. on Vancouver Island affect the dynamics between the sky and the water surface. The landscape of the bay changes entirely along with the fluctuating water level – that changes constantly during the high and low tide rituals. This project attempts to explore the visual and visceral phenomenon of these processes by following the changing patterns. It observes the land filling with water while noticing the dynamics between the water surface and appearance of the sky which in some instances blur along with weather patterns that present themselves through variety of fast changing conditions, from drizzly to foggy, rainy, cloudy, and sunny, often in periods of short time. As I continue to come back to the same location at designated time to record video and shoot photography, I engage with random visitors of this bay and engage in conversations with them. People that I meet and talk with randomly, share different stories with me, however a large part always comes back to their relationship to the weather, the bay, the way they. the reasons they revisit the bay, also how the landscape has changed over the years.

Series of photographic work and videos that I collect on this bay become, in themselves, partial outcome of this project and may be presented as such. However, majority of the collected material (conversations, as well as video and audio) continue to be processed further and serve as foundational research material for a scenography of immersive environment attempting to simulate the ephemeral condition of this landscape as well as the lived experiences of its visitors recited through their stories. The audio-visual material along with collected interviews will undergo further transformation and will be developed into construct of an immersive-participatory environment through use of audio-visual technology, novel materials, and actions of engaged audiences. This part of the project is further subject of research-creation grants and other funding.

Images collected in James Bay, Victoria. The weather conditions at James Bay were very similar to those that I explored in my project. Hence the related photography.