MIRANDA ZHEN-YAO VAN-BOSWELL , Seawitch In Residence , 2024
總 冬 新 年 二四
A child tries to grasp a stream of water as it gushes from the faucet. We draw lines in the ocean, yours and mine, as if it’s not all the same water anyways.
“Which bodies can go where might be the central question of our century”, Olivia Laing sums up astutely. Walking in the Sonoran Desert, I feel like a speck of dust inside a giant’s eye. I later learn that this is in fact one of the most surveilled parts of the world: spy cams in saguaros, military intelligence sloshing forwards and backwards between Israel and ISIS.
Border crossings peak on full moons. Walking where the ocean meets the hushpoint of the shore, I imagine a country founded on kindness. What is war? Who profits, who dies? These are the secrets of seawater and its fish, of Seawitch and the slipperiness of time.
One day when exploring the clubhouse behind Seawitch, I stumbled upon an exquisite stained glass door. Coming across it felt like coming across a body. Like the shattered glass returning to sand, I too sense the molecules of my existence rearranging. But this grief is not worth the poem.
The gift of waking by the sea, morning radio filling the room, a breeze. Breathing space to regard history as something glacial, as the buffalo beneath my window understands the line between water and sand. A pair of slippers, a park bench, a hot bath, some cerebral tea. May this hospitality extend to all desperate strangers. Stay as long as you like, you’re welcome here.
Lighting through, Here to more in particle form, a relish to prompt stories between time, sands beyond sand before sands at seawitch -
images + words : courtesy of the artist (c) Miranda Zhen-Yao Van-Boswell 2024