Film screening at Notam: Water Based by Stan D’Haene

When: October 27th, 2022 at 7:30 PM, screening starts at 8 PM
Where: Notam – Sandakerveien 24D, building F2, 0473 Oslo

About the work:

Water based (2022)
73 minutes, 30 seconds

Water based is a hydrofeminist film that follows a flow of watery bodies along a stream of situations. The work pays attention to the persons that travel by or through water, it visualizes formlessness and proposes rituals for engaging with water in daily life. The work rethinks the relationship with the waters of our lived experience — essential or luxurious, channeled or untethered. It includes intimate spaces for care as well as unpredictable weather conditions and invites for a cold soul shower and an introspective dive.

Performances of gentle graffiti and their ephemeral imprints in urban public spaces reflect on the value of no-budget handstyle acrobatics and water writing’s democratic character. These water writings connect moist minds to watery bodies, as improvised expressions that perform the ability to imagine and shape water. The garden sprayer as a vessel, as an extension of the body. That splash in the moment. Always influenced by circumstances, always a different splash. An intuitive drip of mind around the ever-changing conditions encountered in public space; physically, socially, locally, through the pool portal until a hydropower pitstop.

Splash! Let’s talk about splash-how… —when sweaty security guards and drizzling adrift dry citizens serve scripted body language. Wet brain sweats drops when indulging in ecophilia in the sauna. Involved in water’s circulation through several seasons.

What does it mean to be water based? What/who/how is a water sign? How is my body language affected when I sweat? Can I work with the sensation of a snowflake melting on my face? What about the drizzle shower makes me want to have it again? How to trip through the thirst trap? How do these waters inform my daily life or a curiosity-driven journey? How is it written and how will I rewrite it for you? The film includes contributions of various artists. Its soundtrack was made in collaboration with Jonatan Nilsson. The work was partly produced at Notam, Tenthaus, and Can Serrat.

About the artist:

Stan D’Haene (b. 1994 in Belgium) lives and works in Oslo. They graduated from the MA Autonomous Design at KASK School of Arts, Ghent, and have studied Fine Art at LUCA-arts in Ghent and Media Art at ASP in Warsaw.