As Far As There Was Water Was All It Was

Format: Performance and installation, performed by the artist and participating audience members
Venue: Los Angeles Exhibition Space (LACE), Los Angeles, CA
Year: 2017

Presented at:
• Los Angeles Exhibition Space (LACE), Los Angeles, CA, 2017. Performed as part of programming for Jimena Sarno's solo exhibition "home away from."
• California Museum of Photography (UCR), Spring 2019.

Part of the Geometry of Exile performance series

As Far As There Was Water Was All It Was embodies the artist's journey as an immigrant experiencing exile. Throughout the performance, a border is fragmented into its composing triangles and gradually moved by the artist and participating audience to the other side of the gallery. The triangles' shapes echo the negative spaces in the support structures of Jimena Sarno's main installation, and begin arranged as a straight borderline in front of the gallery's main entrance.

Participants may only move the triangles by rolling them on their sides, without stacking, creating a constantly shifting puzzle of voids and shadows. Each piece carries a reflective side, making the landscape of negative space feel unsettled and spontaneous as it travels through the room. When a triangle reaches the back wall, the participant may place it in any position they choose. The performance ends once every triangle has been displaced and reassembled at that end of the gallery.

The title is drawn from a poem by Maria Tabrizipoor, its imagery of water, motion, and play echoed in the performance's shifting, fluid reconfiguration of a fixed border.

تا بود، آب بود و آب، آبی بود و دوار بود. تمامش بازی بود، آب‌ بازی بود.  

As far as there was water was all it was.
It was whirling and blue it was.
All a game playing water it was.
 

Instructions for the performance: