美国国家公共电台 NPR--This artist gets up to her neck in water to spread awareness of climate change

This artist gets up to her neck in water to spread awareness¹ of climate change

Transcript²

Sarah Cameron Sunde, an interdisciplinary artist, was visiting Maine in 2013 when she noticed something in an ocean inlet. The tide was coming in quickly and completely covered a rock, making it disappear within 30-40 minutes.

It was her eureka moment, the inspiration she had been looking for since Hurricane Sandy devastated⁵ her adopted hometown of New York City a year earlier.

The tides struck her as the perfect metaphor⁶ for sea level rise, quickly transforming the shoreline in a matter of hours the way climate change will, to a much greater degree, over decades.

Three days later, after some planning and preparation, she returned to the inlet for a "durational performance." Sunde began standing⁷ at the edge of the water at low tide, and, in front of other artists from the retreat she had been attending, she continued to stand until the water rose up to her neck. She stayed until the next low tide, nearly 13 hours total.

"I had a moment that I remember very clearly where I was feeling the vastness of the water," Sunde said in a recent interview. "You know, it sounds a little bit cheesy to say, but I was feeling really connected to people on the other side of the planet."

Standing in that cold Maine water, Sunde decided⁸ that if she could last the entire tidal period, it wouldn't just be a one-off performance. She'd produce a series of events in coastal⁹ locations around the world to demonstrate the threat of climate change.

"There was a moment where I was like, you know, I'm this privileged person," she recalled. "If I'm feeling this this deeply, what are other people feeling—in the Global South especially? How are they dealing¹⁰ with it? And so, I felt like I had to know and understand and learn that."

Sunde has performed her project in eight other locations around the world. Above is a time lapse¹¹ video of her in Kenya in 2019.

Sunde, supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship and a number of other grants, has since performed her work in places as far flung as Bangladesh, Kenya, New Zealand and the Netherlands. Her ninth and final performance is scheduled for Sept. 14 in New York City.

Planning, planning, planning

As her series has progressed, her "stands," as she calls them, have become increasingly complex. At each location, she gets involved with community members in some sort of environmental initiative. She now livestreams the productions and shows the videos later in art museums and elsewhere. And at the same time that she'll be standing in the water in New York City, collaborators in some of the other places she's performed will be doing their own stands, more or less simultaneously¹³.

Preparations can be lengthy¹⁴. She has to figure out where she should place herself so spectators can have the best view—in New York City, where she'll be standing on the Queens side of the East River, she wants to get the Manhattan skyline in the frame behind her. And, of course, she also needs to figure out how deep to go in the water so it will rise all the way to her neck at high tide—but not above her mouth.

At a practice stand in late August, a member of Sunde's team, Bella Gallo, unfurls a long rope and sits on a log on the narrow strip of beach where the event will take place. Using a compass to determine the angle, and different knots in the rope to determine the distance, they can determine exactly where she should be at low tide to create the best visual effect.

"I've learned tidal predictions are only predictions. Nothing is guaranteed," Sunde says with a laugh. "That's why I come here a lot. Because when I'm out here all the time, that's how I get to know her, this collaborator¹² of mine—the cove³."

Meanwhile, an artist and friend of Sunde, Pamella Allen, is searching for artifacts she can use in an accompanying art work that she'll create on land. A detached buoy¹⁵ that's come in and out with the tides over the past several months catches her eye.

"The buoy will be a central part of it," Allen says. "It keeps coming back. So, it feels like it's a touchstone between the water, the land and the people."

Another team member, Christopher Bisram, grew up nearby and does outreach for Kin⁴ to the Cove, a community group Sunde organized that's been conducting beach clean-ups.

"My mom would come a bunch of times with me and I just thought it was a dirty beach," he says. "And then Sarah kind of brought in this awareness of, it's human beings that kind of caused this and we can fix it. So if we just work towards fixing it, then it can happen, right?"

Putting herself out there

Over the course of the afternoon, passers-by look over the seawall to watch Sunde's team and try to make sense of what they are doing. Some of them end up agreeing to help out and show up on the day of the performance, either to watch or stand in the water with her.

"It sounds very daring," says Christopher Calderhead, a neighborhood resident. "You're exposing your body to the elements and sometimes there's a wake, which makes waves in this cove. So, you're taking whatever nature's going to hand out to you and you've got to stay put."

The physical aspect of the work is clearly part of its power. Sunde was 36-and-a-half-years old when she performed her first stand in Maine. (The name of her project is "36.5: A Durational Performance with the Sea.") Now, she's 45. So, to prepare, she is doing yoga, watching what she eats, and taking pains to make sure she'll be free on the day before the performance.

"I'm obsessed¹⁶ with telling everyone that the 13th is a rest day," she says. " I'm 99 percent sure something's going to happen that I'm going to have to deal with, but I'm really trying to hold it as a rest day."

1 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 cove   

n.小海湾，小峡谷

参考例句：

• The shore line is wooded,olive-green,a pristine cove.岸边一带林木蓊郁，嫩绿一片，好一个山外的小海湾。
• I saw two children were playing in a cove.我看到两个小孩正在一个小海湾里玩耍。

4 kin   

n.家族，亲属，血缘关系；adj.亲属关系的，同类的

参考例句：

• He comes of good kin.他出身好。
• She has gone to live with her husband's kin.她住到丈夫的亲戚家里去了。

5 devastated   

v.彻底破坏( devastate的过去式和过去分词)；摧毁；毁灭；在感情上（精神上、财务上等）压垮adj.毁坏的；极为震惊的

参考例句：

• The bomb devastated much of the old part of the city. 这颗炸弹炸毁了旧城的一大片地方。
• His family is absolutely devastated. 他的一家感到极为震惊。

6 metaphor   

n.隐喻，暗喻

参考例句：

• Using metaphor,we say that computers have senses and a memory.打个比方，我们可以说计算机有感觉和记忆力。
• In poetry the rose is often a metaphor for love.玫瑰在诗中通常作为爱的象征。

7 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

8 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

9 coastal   

adj.海岸的，沿海的，沿岸的

参考例句：

• The ocean waves are slowly eating away the coastal rocks.大海的波浪慢慢地侵蚀着岸边的岩石。
• This country will fortify the coastal areas.该国将加强沿海地区的防御。

10 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

11 lapse   

n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效

参考例句：

• The incident was being seen as a serious security lapse.这一事故被看作是一次严重的安全疏忽。
• I had a lapse of memory.我记错了。

12 collaborator   

n.合作者，协作者

参考例句：

• I need a collaborator to help me. 我需要个人跟我合作，帮我的忙。
• His collaborator, Hooke, was of a different opinion. 他的合作者霍克持有不同的看法。

13 simultaneously   

adv.同时发生地，同时进行地

参考例句：

• The radar beam can track a number of targets almost simultaneously.雷达波几乎可以同时追着多个目标。
• The Windows allow a computer user to execute multiple programs simultaneously.Windows允许计算机用户同时运行多个程序。

14 lengthy   

adj.漫长的，冗长的

参考例句：

• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。
• The professor wrote a lengthy book on Napoleon.教授写了一部有关拿破仑的巨著。

15 buoy   

n.浮标；救生圈；v.支持，鼓励

参考例句：

• The party did little to buoy up her spirits.这次聚会并没有让她振作多少。
• The buoy floated back and forth in the shallow water.这个浮标在浅水里漂来漂去。

16 obsessed   

adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的

参考例句：

• He's obsessed by computers. 他迷上了电脑。
• The fear of death obsessed him throughout his old life. 他晚年一直受着死亡恐惧的困扰。