Arts Brookfield invites you to a screening of 36.5 / Bodo Inlet, Kenya by artist Sarah Cameron Sunde, May 20 and 21, on Manhattan West Plaza. The event will take place from 8:10am – 8:16pm, daily – a duration which matches the timing of the full tidal cycle in Bodo Inlet, Kenya on November 8, 2019, the day this work was created. This video artwork captures the artist’s performance in Kenya, Africa, which took place as part of Sunde’s continuing series, 36.5 / A Durational Performance with the Sea (2013-present). For these site-specific participatory performances, Sunde stands in ocean water for a full tidal cycle (12-13 hours) as water rises up to her chin and then recedes. The public is invited to participate in all aspects of making the work. The ninth and final work in the series will premiere on September 14, 2022, in Queens, Lenapehoking-New York City. A live broadcast of the performance will be broadcast at both Manhattan West and Brookfield Place in Lower Manhattan.

Sarah Cameron Sunde
36.5 / Bodo Inlet, Kenya, 2019
HD video artwork
12 hours, 6 minutes
Seventh work of a nine-part series, 36.5 / A Durational Performance with the Sea

Made in collaboration with UKT Group, Bodo Village, Kwale Arts, University of Nairobi, Fort Jesus Museum, House of Friends, Kimingichi Wabende, Wakili Mwatondo, Jordan Muindi (video), Joshua Dumas (music) and everyone who participated.

About 36.5 / A Durational Performance with the Sea

Built in collaboration with communities around the world, 36.5 / A Durational Performance with the Sea is a series of nine site-specific performances and video artworks that activate the public on personal, local, and global scales in conversations around deep time, embodied experience, and sea-level rise. Beginning in 2013 with a simple poetic gesture in response to Hurricane Sandy hitting New York, Sarah Cameron Sunde stood in water for 12 hours and 48 minutes while the tide rose and fell on her body. Since then, 36.5 has grown into a complex, collaborative, evolving series of works involving hundreds of people in communities around the world: Maine, Mexico, San Francisco, the Netherlands, Bangladesh, Brazil, Kenya, Aotearoa-New Zealand, and New York City. Over several months, often years, Sarah builds deep and meaningful collaborations with local communities who live near a body of water where sea-levels are expected to rise. Working with a local team, she films the entire event in real time, and translates this footage into a durational video work to be shown in museums, galleries, and public spaces. The ninth and final work in the series will premiere on September 14, 2022, in Queens, Lenapehoking-New York City. Learn more at www.36pt5.org.

RELATED UPCOMING EVENTS:

+ AUGUST 13: Brookfield Place: Screening of 36.5 / Te Manukanukatanga ō Hoturoa, Aotearoa-New Zealand & Community Engagement

+ SEPTEMBER 14: Manhattan West & Brookfield Place: Live Broadcast of 36.5 / New York Estuary, Sunde’s performance in Queens, Lenapehoking-New York City, the ninth and final work in the 36.5 series.