 Good afternoon. I heard somebody say wall when she was almost alone When the water was this high you could see her from behind Sarah was wearing the red Like she is wearing all around the world. I think that wall was exactly what It starts to provoke and Sarah will talk about her work. So I won't do that. I'm Hank Oving I'm special envoy for international water affairs water ambassador Talking about water 24-7 in every place around the world, but also working on water champion water and Also standing in the water This is in the Netherlands I Was lucky you could say You know, it was only here And it was only for an hour. I brought the mayor of the city of Katwijk We brought community we brought engineers and activists Sarah will talk about Why she does what she doesn't what it really means but I'll say two things one is the importance of water and How far away we are as a world in understanding what is important We're currently in the worst water crisis the world has ever faced our fresh water is declining at a rate Unprecedented and it means that every minute and second of our days We have less fresh water available for food for security for energy for combating climate for protecting biodiversity to protect us from health and at the same time Because land degradation bad planning We have more water in our skies than ever before Atmospheric rivers traveling continents impacting beyond regions and therefore making us more vulnerable So the water cycle has to be understood as a global common good as something that we share Second To raise that awareness to understand of course we need facts. We need data. We need our policies and practices We need projects and programs. We need all of you But we also need art art as not something that is Imaginary but is as a provocation That helps us understand more or less as a slap in the face and at the same time a kiss an Embrace that gives us warmth and the hard time How important the future is for every current thing we're doing as human kinds being governments private sector financiers innovators individuals NGOs and community art helps us Not only understand the challenges and every importance, but makes us feel the wall I just heard when Sarah was close to the water covering her chin It's art that touches us in our stomach Because what we need moving forward is not only the understanding with our heads It's also the feeling in our hearts And art brings something more It brings action So what can we do? But it also and always gives us our feats our geographies our cultures where we are grounded and how we move forward And I think this is what Sarah's work ties into climate and water is this connection of this understanding that we share Combined with the feeling of urgency a provocation Grounded in the cultures of our world of our societies of our continents ever to be able That that provocation gives us hope Because it's not a slap in the face that tries to hurt us In a way that we feel less empowered It's a provocation that wakes us up To empower us to do better to do better together Sarah will talk about these partnerships the importance of water and her provocation It's a pleasure and honor that you're all here to witness this and Sarah the floor is yours with this Thank you Hank. Thank you everyone for being here. I'm Sarah Cameron Sunda And this is the date that changed everything for me Hurricane sandy hit the east coast of the united states. It hit new york, especially hard. That's where I live That's my home And overnight All these things happened And these statistics are just from new york city there There was unprecedented impact all along the east coast And what happened for me was this hit me in the gut and I suddenly understood How vulnerable our cities were that they're just as vulnerable as our individual bodies and I I started to understand that It was entirely possible that new york city could disappear in my lifetime, you know, we know civilizations come and go We learned that in school But the idea that we would have to abandon new york That was something I really hadn't considered before And I at the time I was working on a project about the struggle for an artist to survive Running around the city trying to make ends meet. I kept unimagining a little person Doing this and the Cindy is just sinking beneath her feet and I was thinking about these 520 miles of coastline that surround new york city and Wondering why weren't we paying more attention to the water? What is the water trying to tell us about the future? And so I kept on working on this image And thinking about this parallel the struggle To survive on a daily basis and the struggle for humanity to survive in the face Of sea level rise and the climate crisis and then nine months later I'm up in Maine 400 miles north of the city and there's a 10 and a half foot title shift there And I could not stop watching it at low tide. It was this muddy flat The bay we were on bass harbor and at high tide It was this beautiful blue bay of water and I just watched and watched and one day I'm watching this rock Getting swallowed whole by the water over the course of about 40 minutes And it was the most riveting performance. I've ever seen in my life And I was I imagined a person Standing out there in the water. I thought this is the image. This is what I've been searching for Who can I convince to stand in the water for me for a full title cycle? So I can capture this image And then I realized no one was going to do that for me. So if I wanted to make that image I had to do it myself So three days later there I stood 12 hours and 48 minutes. I walked out into the water at low tide I waited and the water rose up to my chin And then I went back down again And as I was out there, this was the hardest thing I've ever done Um I really did not know if I would make it through those 12 hours and 48 minutes But there was a moment when I was out there that I remember very very clearly The water was pretty high and I could feel the currents and I under and I was looking at the moon and I could I understood again Intellectually we know this but I understood in my body Just how connected we all are All around the world and I was thinking if I'm this little artist in New York City Thinking about climate change. What is someone in Bangladesh who's already dealing with these challenges? What are they feeling about it? What is someone in Kenya? Feeling and thinking about in relationship to these questions. What is someone in china? Thinking about and so I made this bow to myself. I said, okay If I make it through these 12 hours and 48 minutes I will Do this project I will figure out how to do this project in collaboration with communities around the world So I can learn and understand what other people are going through because we have to come together as a global humanity on this And so here we are nine years later I'd given myself seven years, but it turned into nine because of the covid crisis And here we are nine nine years later And I wonder we know we know that water levels are rising I wonder are we paying enough attention to the water now so here we are in Tianjin and This is a city that is extremely vulnerable to extreme flooding and subsidence these This is the flood map pulled from earth.org There's been recent reporting on What's happening with sea level rise in china? We have 15 million inhabitants in this city And it's an economic hub for 285 companies of the five of the fortune 500 And the chinese government has invested a lot in development along the coast and Now with the potential for flood damage and eroded coastline ecosystem and the threatening of the groundwater The chinese government is also investing in mitigation systems. So seawalls mangrove planting cities and drainage systems And like most places in the world right now, it's still unclear If everyone is on the same page about what needs to happen and how fast it needs to happen And so my big question right now is what role can art play in this moment? And I keep thinking about art And policymaking and how do we come together? on these issues because the link Is often indirect often You know Artists are working on things and there's incremental change But there's and but the policy makers are tending to listen to the science Because there's hard facts and and even though artists are always they always have their fingers on the poles And there's always a lot of There's always laying the groundwork for societal issues and to try to address address these challenges And so I think that we need to be talking about how artists and policy makers can come together And work in tandem to move faster on the climate crisis so Going back to main in 2013 I'm going to tell you the story of what happened after this And I'm going to hope that maybe we can all together think about how policy and action how we can get creative in these ways So out of main came 36.5 a durational performance with the sea It's a series of nine site specific Performances and video artworks made in collaboration with communities around the world and these nine bodies of water around the world after main I first went to mexico akumal bay and What I learned there was how to start engaging with the public. So I invited People I into conversation and I learned a lot about what their relationship with the water was and we And that informed the decisions that I made along the way where to stand etc In san francisco people started to join me we started out a little bit in mexico But it was more more people in san francisco and this idea of the human clock began So I was together with a local artist. We made a series of Gestures that people could perform so they could participate on the shore in other ways besides standing in the water with me In case they felt like it was going to be too cold And that was really important for me because I needed to know When another hour had passed during the performance it was important to to to feel it or to be in communication with people on the shore And then I went to the netherlands. There's hank again Standing with me for that hour And this I like to say that the project launched on a global scale in the netherlands in a way Because it was it was the first time that we really filmed everything in real time and started turning that into a Durational video work that was the same length as the performance and then I could I turned that so 12 hours and 46 minutes And we showed that as an exhibition 10 days later in amsterdam and these video artworks then are the lasting Art that remains after the performance In bonza desh Music became a really important part of the work So nasir played his kombak sumi performed the human clock together with the Community who lived there and then this very special man Mohammed Islam came and he played his mandolin for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening And we learned later that he was a rohingya Muslim refugee who had just escaped persecution and Crossed the waters to survive So that opened up new ways of thinking about water and survival This is in brazil in salvador and Lev brisa performed a contempl play ritual to begin the performance And then together with her crew prete shahua. They performed street poetry to mark the passing of each hour Adriana Campello who is a the chief resilience officer for the city of salvador said this contemporary art This is contemporary art with the ability to impact many many people a one of a kind manifesto on global issues For climate change social inequality and freedom of expression This durational work is not a one-off art intervention, but a long-lasting experience that keeps reverberating through our multiple senses in kenya There was a ton of participation from the entire community People really came out to support the work We had great meetings with the elders with the community officials And learned a lot about the drainage systems that they're the problems with the drainage systems that they're facing similar to tea engine in a way much smaller scale And Everybody just really showed up the human clock became this incredible Moment incredible moments of singing and dancing. There was a ceremonial drum 400 years old that became part of it and a town crier who got everyone to come And we planted 750 mangrove seedlings And later 10 days later after the performance we screened the video in the village In autearoa, I had the privilege of working with some incredible Maori Leaders in the community and they taught me so much about living daily life With deep respect for the environment and and for the land and the water especially Things like asking permission before doing anything Resiprosity if you take something from the water give something back this this these ideas really revolutionized the project for me and And allowed me to see the importance of listening to indigenous leaders wherever we are in the world And the final performance happened in new york city just this last year september 14th 2022 We had 175 people who came out to stand in the water with me for part of the time. We also had live streaming Broadcast in many venues around the city And we had satellite performances happening in All of the international locations around the world So this is actually my team in kenya standing in the water on september 14th while i'm in new york city and I had teams in bangladesh and autearoa and the netherlands And which one am I missing And uh, and brazil all standing together and we put we were able to layer them into the live stream That then got sent out around the world Um, so here you see me standing in the water and it's layered with images from bangladesh And from kenya also standing in the water at the same time So here we are It's 2023 and we know Time is running out So what are we going to do about it? We we must face the realities of today. We have to face the sea I'm going to put on this kenyan. This is the kenya 36.5 boto inlet uh, Durational video maybe we can turn the sound levels down just a tiny bit um and I'm going to try to speed up here, but within the climate conversation You know art is often talked about as a communication tool and that is true But it is so much more than that because 36.5 is trying to actively touched on this 36.5 is trying to actively feel something that is a really abstract idea Sea level rise feels abstract because it's too slow for us to perceive on a daily basis And we're inviting participants to slow down and feeling in their bodies To experience the water in a different way. It's a global project with a hyper local approach It's about scale and duration and trying to understand what will happen in the future When the water rise when the water rises It's about taking us out of our comfort zone And feeling is really really key So what happens if we really feel the scale of our tiny bodies in relationship to the water to the seven tenths of the planet that's covered in water I want to do a very quick test To think about this together I'd like to um Invite everyone if you want to to stand up to face The sea so if you know where your geography and tangent where the sea is you can face the actual sea or you can face the water here And I just want you to breathe for a second We'll just do this for like 30 seconds But just to imagine the water rising Very slowly on your body. Just take Take a tiny moment here Did you feel it? I wish we could do that for longer Um, but imagine if everybody could experience What sea level rise feels like in their bodies? What might happen How might we adjust our plans for adaptation? And how might our reality shift? There's an opportunity here We're still talking This is the this is the q&a part of the section That is a so impressive And I work for the world resource institute the blue eye china office My job is to giving the policy recommendation to the government every country's that it is so impressive As the artist how to show the impact So maybe I could ask some question first and kick off the question and answer If you have a more question you can raise your hand and interrupt us I'm sorry. I'm so Moved by the video and also the way you're performed using nine years that is a brilliant years in the whole life and also The spans through the village towns and also the big cities The person join you also from the villagers to the government officials And what is the most difficult things you met during this artist's work? Well, it's um, it's definitely not easy to do this both Physically, it's hard to stand in the water for that long But I I think the struggle is really important and that's an important part of the work. I'm interested in how there will be struggle in the future and And so actually putting my body into a place of struggle where I in a way that I don't usually have to struggle Feels like an important learning like a rehearsal For what what is coming and what what discomfort we will feel in the future Yeah, I don't know. I mean it's been an adventure the hardest thing is it each work has its chat had its challenges and And there were always reasons why I might not have been able to make it through the full title cycle But in some ways, maybe just the hardest the hardest thing was just Kind of persevering and getting getting through it making it happen making the connections But I also love that, you know, that's that's an important part of everything I can assume that personally you sunk yourself into the sea water Sometimes you can draw your self Decision but for how to move everybody Work with you action with you. That is a fantastic Yeah, you know, I think the most important thing was listening to the water This is what I learned really early on that it was about trying to be in Collaboration with the water like I think of the water as my scene partner as my collaborator in this performance, right? And so if I listen to the water and I listen to the people who live near the water and all the species and all the things that are part of the world Around the water then The answers will come At the beginning of the video if we notice that you'll say What's the roles of artists in climate decision making? So I'm curious about Is there any impact after this video? The impact to the behavior of the towns the cities and also how can you impact to the decision making? Yeah, I mean so one of one example that I like to talk about is in kenya. They're the mangrove Planting has been really important and there has been a continuation of that in a bigger way than it ever had been before And they also The town of boto has They they've sort of taken the project on and they they almost are they they've done it a few times reenactments a couple times and And it really lives in their bodies. They've kind of One of my collaborators there likes to say that they've appropriated the performance into their culture So that it it is really part of their cultural their cultural life And I don't know. I mean, I think some of the impacts have been small and reverberating through the people who have experienced it I know a lot of my collaborators have told me that their their lives have changed because of because of this work And i'm really interested in how we can be in conversation with policy makers more how how these things can actually affect Real implementation of laws because we need that we need these things to be to happen more Yeah, that's the mix people really feel it And I would like to leave questions to the audience if you have questions Please raise your hand and also to tell us who you are coming from and what's your question? Okay So by the end of all this your work is very impressive and very personal I'm wondering how could you use this power to change in the policy making like the question you have or What what what have it been impact? So maybe it's a good case study that other country can try to call on more people to talk about this Mm-hmm Yeah, I mean I think that's an interesting question for you actually Yes, that that is a You know that to the decision making makers that there are a lot of the channels to get information Normally we give the data the report and sometimes when I visit to some cities I also provide them some tight map To show them if the temperature Two degrees raise how about the city and four degrees raise how about the city? But with such kind of a living living videos, that is a totally different feelings and I think that is a That is a way We could thinking about in the decision making process Maybe art can also play some roles In in those part and also can evoke or inspire the people to understand the climate Climate is not far away from us. It's near and the culture and the city vulnerable as our bodies Just I've actually thought about how and I've been talking with some folks who run a rights for nature Law organization in the United States about how we could have like if If there are judges who are making decisions that have to do with a river or with the coastline how we could like We could mandate it that the judge has to go and stand in the river for A few hours to try to understand what the river is trying to say, you know And so there's I think there's really interesting opportunities to integrate art into the the systems If we open if the policymakers and the and the people who are doing other forms of work Open it up to be in conversation with artists. So that's what I'm interested in is how can we play with these things? How can you if you're not working in the arts? How can you bring in an artist to just think in a little bit of a different way and be like, oh, what if we did this? You know Thank you, Sarah. And could we visit your studio in New York? Sure. Yes, anyone can come visit Thank you very much and please the time is used out and let's plow for Sarah for such Nine years the beautiful time of the life. Thank you. Thank you, and I'd love to connect with anyone who didn't get to ask to answer their questions