Celia Hay (b. 1991, London) / Pearlie Frisch (b. 1986, Switzerland)

Stabbing The River

https://celiahay.fr  /  www.pearliefrisch.com

 

This work is a collaboration between Pearlie Frisch and Célia Hay as they embark on a quest with an irrational end : stabbing a river. An oneiric gesture towards landscape captured by the river Seyhan, in Adana. Here, the act of stabbing repeated towards the exhaustion of the subject (the river, or the stabber ?), is declinated through an assemblage layering the traces of those strokes. Medium format polaroids merge with film negatives enlarged to the point they become some abstract landscapes resembling the surface of the wounded river, and drawings with instructions on how to stab a river to death : « hold the water firmly with you left hand », « hit the surface of the water [with the knife] », « repeat the gesture until the water stops moving ». The whole body is engaged in a very physical gesture, the repeated stabbing of a constantly renewed flow, a romantic dual with Nature towards a vain exploit.