Tracing Water is a site-specific artwork and video created through my exploration of water in neighbourhood swimming pools and the local river that supplies the community. This work is a reflection of my journey learning and being with the water and land. I was interested in developing my practice in Sympoiesis, focusing on my non-human relationship to this precious life-giving force. Through this work, I explore and question the spaces occupied by water and the role it embodies within the community.

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I used Google maps to trace and then erase my path to the river where the pool water came from and will return home. The lines present in the digital painting and animation seen in the video represent this journey, a gesture of remembering our connection to Mother Earth as we navigate the complex systems and structures that shape us. The river is expressed in its entirety as the thick curving line in the centre. The small and large circular shapes represent all the residential swimming pools in this community. In the video, the sound and footage of the river and the pool water blend together with the animation as one, an act of reconnecting these bodies of water. I chose colours and tones observed in the water to inform the animation and handmade paper studies. I projected the digital animation onto the pool and filmed the results, inviting the water to activate the work in an unexpected way. It moved and flowed in its entangled living with the wind and light, bringing the artwork to life. It was the act of becoming-with.