I am an aquatic performance artist, art historian and researcher. I consider being in water an artistic practice. Connecting with water allows me to perceive the world in more liquid terms and, in doing so, I hope to inspire others to reconnect with water. After all, as Astrida Neimanis notes, ‘'we have all arisen out of the same primordial soup’’ (in: A Hydrofeminism: Or, On Becoming a Body of Water).
What draws me to water? Ever since I learnt to swim as a child, I have always loved and craved being in water. Indeed, its effect on me is not only physical but also mental: it calms my mind and helps me to think more clearly. As such, my desire to be near water has become the focus of much of my traveling, while, more recently, it has led me to form a physical and mental health routine.
In the summer of 2018, I started swimming everyday in the Bolko, a body of water near my home in Opole, Poland. Formerly a limestone quarry, the Bolko lake was only formed during Poland’s great flooding of 1997, when overflow from a nearby river filled an empty mining pit. By submerging myself daily in the Bolko, I started to reflect on aquatic concerns further afield. For while I was taking the plunge to cool myself down from the extreme heat of that particular summer, glaciers elsewhere were melting away. I began to consider how water connects all life and influences events on a global scale.
In addition, I began to consider my position as a woman in water. Dampness, humidity and liquidity are traditionally seen as feminine qualities in many cultures. Hydrofeminism builds on this, proposing - as an alternative theory of evolution - that if we could achieve a more fluid point of view, maybe we would be able to view history and reality from a slightly different perspective. Hydrofeminism shows us that we are all connected through watery interactions and circulations, and that the very nature of water invalidates human-made borders. This is evidenced by the achievements of Lynne Cox who, in 1987, swam across the icy waters of the Bering Strait between the United States and the Soviet Union, proving that boundaries are virtual concepts. Cox and other brave women who have met fundamentalism with their unstable but fluid perceptions have greatly inspired my own artistic practice.
