Water Over Stone No. 4, 2021 (excerpt)
Running time: 22:50 minutes / HD / colour

Movement of water over a stone in Lake Memphrémagog in the Eastern Townships.

Camera: Sylvia Safdie
Editing: Gabrielle Allain, Sylvia Safdie

To gaze at a river made of time and water
and remember Time is another river
To know that we stay like a river
Our faces vanish like water.

— Jorge Luis Borges, The Art of Poetry, translated by Anthony Kerrigan, A Personal Anthology (Grove Press, 1967), p. 199.

While gazing at the currents in Lake Memphremagog, without realizing it, I became captivated by the flow of water over a stone. It was a windy afternoon, and the water kept gushing in rhythms of swirls as it intervened with the stone; Or was it the stone that intervened with the flow of water. However, it was the stone that I identified with – my body became the stone, and I was enveloped by its folds, wrinkles, and ripples of the water. When I became conscious of the experience I ran to get my video camera.

Since then, I have often returned to the same spot. With the changing of seasons, the level of water is constantly changing, sometimes revealing and sometimes concealing the stone. I have observed and recorded hours of footage, abandoning myself to the life force expressed by the interaction of water and stone. Chance is inherent in nature – it is echoed by change and the unknown that unfolds in the making of art.

This video was exhibited projected onto the floor at the exhibition As I Walk at Fonderie Darling, Montréal, 2021.