Listening to the Sea

2022

„Listening to the Sea“ is based on a trip to the Westfjords in Iceland. During a boattour I met Judith Scott, an international whale watching guide. She provided me her Whale Photo Identification Catalogue with whale fins from 180 North Atlantic humpback whales spotted in the Westfjords Iceland. The different personality traits of whales, their fins, inspired me to draw these 180 whale fins with watercolor.

Another aspect of the project includes a collection of analogue photographs and the video works „Song for Seals“ and „Whale Watching,“ inspired by my research in the Westfjords of Iceland. Among these is the photograph titled „Walkreis.“ In this image, I captured the surface of the sea, where a fleeting circle of water forms briefly after a whale has submerged—an ephemeral trace of an event that has already occurred.

Parts of the project were shown in a Duet /Exhibition with Yuki Jungesblut at sign CIAT, Berlin
TO THE SEA, FROM THE SEA

It’s important to always be by the sea.
The sea is the element of love.
The Greeks say so.
Aphrodite emerged from the water.

Uncle Yanco, Agnes Varda


Exhibition Text
The sea can be seen as a place of peril, challenge, loss and dispute; it can be thought of as an economic zone, a territorial claim or as an endangered terrain, the polluted home to aquatic life. But the sea can also be remembered as a place of desire, of longing, of freedom, of forgiveness, of memory and most importantly as one of connection. It is a place that gives life and indeed that is love.

For their first joint exhibition Dana Engfer and Yuki Jungesblut have chosen the Sea as their common ground for a playful and careful dialogue that is woven from new and old work, fragments, photographs and recordings, oscillating between innocence and wonder.