Overboard and Still Breathing

Shertise Solano (2022)

Commissioned by Het Nieuwe Instituut, the Shertise Solano created Overboard and Still Breathing, a video installation exploring the theme of water.

The work originates from a speculative question: What if the world were to flood, and survival depended on living in the sea? Guided by this thought, Solano experimented with projections of moving water images on the body. To complement the visuals musically, she collaborated with composer Isha Forster (Phantom Wizard) to create the soundtrack Overboard, which was also released on vinyl.

In this 20-minute performative film, a figure embarks on a journey through the ocean. Along the way, she disappears into the hypnotic whisper of seaweed, makes love to a lobster, and gradually transforms into a sea urchin.

Rendered in black, white, and red, the film portrays a body’s struggle to survive on the ocean floor — where ceasing to breathe becomes the only possible way out.

Overboard and Still Breathing

She
returned
to the ocean
beneath the Water Cities

It was time
to stop
breathing

Time to flip overboard

to sink and
hear her fragile Aaah sound
while drowning in the deep black ocean

Don’t
forget
to move

Shertise Solano

― Artist

“Solano translates her own experiences and visions into dream worlds on a monumental — studio wall–filling — scale. Through these worlds move fairy-tale-like hybrid human–animal figures that evoke associations with a wide range of mythologies and cultures. Her work, she says, represents the truth or reality that already exists within the viewer: it holds up a mirror to you. The figures, rendered in predominantly ritual red, black, and white with strong lines and planes, are at times playful and joyful, and at other times appear menacing, (…).”

Event