...Like Water
A participatory walk from the edge of the city to the sea, January 23, 2026
In collaboration with Cid Pearlman and Ilia Dolgov, commissioned by the Institute of the Arts and Sciences, Santa Cruz, CA, in relation to their exhibition “Weather and the Whale.”
(documentation on vimeo here)
...Like Water unfolded on unceded land stewarded since time immemorial by Indigenous people, and at the time of colonization, inhabited by the Awaswas speaking Uypi people. Now, the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band is working to restore traditional stewardship practices on these lands and to heal from historical trauma.
We walked together one month after the brutal and deadly ICE invasion of Minneapolis in December 2025, and four months after ICE began “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago. While editing the video documentation in October 2026, ICE began its second intensive invasion of California, including of the Central Coast.
Water does not respect fences or borders, it moves around obstacles, and it sometimes moves the obstacles themselves.
In the words of Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, water is resistance, solidarity, process, and practice.
Thank you Cid and Ilia, and also to Alex Moore, co-curator of Weather and the Whale at the IAS; Daris Jasper, photographer; Hannah Jayanti, videographer; Adam Lovell, Manager of the Homeless Garden Project; Elizabeth Howard, Director of the Younger Lagoon Reserve; Movement guides Annabelle, Sienna, David, Kira, Elizebeth, Cynthia; and IAS interns Diego and Rebecca