Pond / Auschwitz II, 2010 (excerpt)
Running time: 1:33 minutes / HD / colour

Auschwitz, May 2010. Rain falling on pond in Auschwitz II, Birkenau.

It is in this pond that ashes were dumped of many tens of thousands of people, mostly Jews, who were gassed at Crematorium IV.

Camera: Sylvia Safdie
Editing: Patrick Andrew Boivin, Sylvia Safdie
Audio: Silent

“Shot during the artist’s first visit to the site of the eponymous concentration camp, the works focus on natural phenomena found in the camp’s surroundings. As a result of uncharacteristically heavy rainfalls at that time, much of the site was flooded. This seeming liability ultimately inspired the artist to work with the water, utilizing its surface, raindrops and reflections to speak of the “absent present.”

Pond captures the effect of rain on the ashen surface of a small body of water.”

– Scott McLeod, Press Release, Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art, Toronto, 2014