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Original Film Title: Barricade
Director’s Name: Blue Republic Passakas
Writer’s Name: Blue Republic Passakas
Producer: Blue Republic Passakas
Country of Origin: Canada
Country of Filming: Canada
Runtime: 12 minutes 57 seconds
Film Description:
An artist paints a barricade with water and brush across a remote rocky beach at Georgian Bay, on Lake Huron in Northern Ontario. The ‘barricade’, menacing at first, is observed as it slowly changes and gradually disappears, its ephemeral presence subject to evaporation. The light changes and clouds drift through the sky, while waves rhythmically break on the rocky shore. These short-lived images and their natural evaporation registered on videos, are a continuation of Blue Republic’s earlier experiments of creating trans objects – objects that had been shredded, pulverized, evaporated and are thought to be destroyed. In case of Water Drawings, there are no objects as such, there is only the performative aspect of drawing with water on rock surface. The only trace is the object’s shadow in an ephemeral form of a fast-drying outline made with water and brush, and its video documentation.
We are among the handful of land art artists, whose activity leaves no traces: nothing is changed, removed or modified. Water Drawings work takes place in silence and solitude, away from the usual problems of urban life. The natural environment acting like a great mirror has a sobering effect, which allows our – and the viewers’ concerns to regain their sense of proportion.