Proximity Study (Sight Lines) by Elizabeth Webb

Proximity Study (Sight Lines) is an attempt to measure closeness despite temporal distance. My grandfather (whom I never met) worked as a longshoreman on the Brooklyn waterfront for 37 years. From Governors Island, I am able to look directly at his place of work; many years ago, he would have returned my gaze from the other side. I filmed the docks with 16mm and rowed in the channel between these two locations. The film print trailed behind the boat, tracing our route, recording our sight lines, and reaching to bridge the distance across the channel. Yet, the longer we rowed, the more the water erased the image.

Special thanks to Julia Sharpe, Marie Lorenz and the Tide and Current Taxi.

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Elizabeth Webb

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2021 Triennial Exhibition - July 31st

This installment of Works on Water’s three year triennial turns to concepts of long-term care for our urban waterfront ecology and reconsideration of water time-scales. WoWhaus Resident artists’ and Tending the Edge artists’ projects call attention to marginalized ecological community members, and to water’s cycles of time and being.