2 Channel Video Installation (2011) / DV Pal / Stereo / 8:06 in Loop

During my stay at the artist-residency in Itaparica in Brazil, i dedicated my time to research and work about the knowledge, the ideas, the mythologies about the sea. Itaparica, where i stayed for two months, is a village on an island in Bahia. The afro-brazilian culture and religions there like candomble are connected deeply with the nature elements, specificly the sea – which is a female god called Yemanja.

In this work, i took the sea as the image for the circle of birth, life and death and worked together with a initiated woman and her granddaughter both involved in a little candomble temple in Itaparica. The title – in engl. Sea of Death – comes from the novel of the brazilian author Jorge Amado. The video installation uses two channels. On one side we see the two in a loop walking in each others footsteps. Through the editing their movements become one. The two protagonists start watching in a mirror seeing each others image dissapearing in the sea. On the other screen we see the old woman singing a song about yemanja mixed with images from a candomble session in a candomble church, where the old lady is part of.