With Water

With Water, a long-term collaborative project with photographer Christian Kipp. Work originated within the liminal ground of the foreshore within the tidal zone of the Thames in the heart of the ancient city of London. With Water has since moved on through the watery environments of the wilder places of Norfolk, Wales, Ireland, Scottish Islands and most recently Shetland.

During each period of collaboration, we camp out, to live closely with the land and the elements, and to be informed by the cycles of light and dark. We take time to develop a physical relationship with place, we immerse ourselves within the environment and develop a visual, physical, sensory relationship to land and to water through walking, and exploring, through texture, surface, scent, tide, inside nooks, crannies. We listen to each landscape’s relationship to water we hear the land speaking of the past as the water moves in the present.

With Water is available to buy in book form and has been shown as installation.
 

‘We cannot remember what we were doing here.
We cannot remember who said that the day had begun.
We cannot remember how far back in time it was and when we spoke.
We cannot remember how long it took.
We cannot remember what we has left behind that day.
We cannot remember how to find it.
We cannot remember the way.
We cannot remember how long it took the water to move.
We cannot remember what the sky has said only a moment before.’
from Sky 2010 Christian Kipp and Hilary Kneale

  

‘A fizz of life upon a stem wakes me from my slumber’
from Pool 2011 Christian Kipp and Hilary Kneale

  

‘A somnambulist at rest, a small pool of ocean slumbers.
She senses movement, hears a continuum of whispered memories.
In time the waters will carry her with them,
float her from the bedrock, suspend her over the sleeping pool.
The somnambulist may not know that she is waiting,
may not feel the moment that she slips into herself.’
from Island 2012 Christian Kipp and Hilary Kneale

  

‘All stand here within the depths of silence lining the walls of the cave and listen.
As they listen they stand soft backed as shell shed crab,
merging between the ribs of ancient rock.
They gaze into the thick air as it softly calls in the remains of the daylight,
calling it to melt into the thick green paint of cave plant.
She feels the shine of her own life opening towards the light.
Her breath moves with the call, her sense waken.
Hearing moves into the vastness around her.
She listens beyond her own breath into the greening darkness.’
from Eigg 2013 Christian Kipp and Hilary Kneale

  

‘Wind catches the edges of the stane and thrums of giants
Wind catches the edges of the stane and mutters of dwarves
We sit long and quiet immersed in sound
The rustle and catch of wind
The hum of an old song
The scrape and boom of glaciers moving across the valley
We hear the echo of the hollowing out of this place for death
Sense the movement of ceremony
We see the scribble of grasses against the deep marks of time
We are quiet enough to hear the past

The song of the wind is scored by grasses
Their fragile prose written on stone
I hum the song from deep within the body’

from Fall 2014 by Christian Kipp and Hilary Kneale

  

‘The blue here scatters across my mind sky turning space and time in on itself. It sews me neatly to its surface just as I hear the depths call me further in, I drop towards them, unravelling the new made stitches one at a time. I fall into a depth here that is wild with light and moving air, the wildness of this blue asks me to lie with it amongst the whispers of time. New strands emerge and fold me into its great weavings as if I am a mere sliver of discarded wool or feather on the breeze or droplet of water loosed from a storm force wave. I remember what I have not heard and turn my head to read the stitches on my sleeve. ‘The far seeps in even to the nearest’. I am of the dissolving blue as I move under and between the rolling of its sounds. The blue whispers to me of all that it holds, I glance over my shoulder and the grin of Cheshire Cat fades to become wing tip of fulmar.’
from Soundings 2015 by Christian Kipp and Hilary Kneale

  
  

  
  
  

With Water. Installation. Lanchester Gallery. Decoda. Coventry 2012
  
With Water 2010 – 2015 series 1-6, Published books:
Sky 2010
Pool 2011
Island 2012
Eigg 2013
Fall 2014
Soundings 2015

Photos and sound: Christian Kipp