Finding Sea Level

Performative action and an edition of 6 lithographs
Nida, Lithuania, and Berlin, Germany
50 x 36 cm
2015–2016

A friend told me a story of a conversation he overheard once when he was sailing. Two people were standing on the deck of a boat in the middle of the ocean, looking over the bow, out over the water. One of them turned to the captain and asked, “Where’s sea level?” They were not more than a couple meters from the sea surface, and yet there was an assumption of an absolute sea level that transcended their very real, situated experience of sea level.

Mulling over this question, I built a “high-resolution map-making apparatus” out of wood and acrylic glass. I took it down to the beach, placing it directly on the line between the land and sea. As the waves lapped onto the beach, I traced their limits and accumulated a collection of lines, recording the change in the coastline over the course of one hour. This document was later transcribed as lithographs, etching the fleeting coastline into stone.