In We Are Bodies of Water, we toy and blur the lines of life, death, presence and relation in an hauntological fashion. Cárcavas are the result of water erosion to land. Carcavelos Beach means the beach of cárcavos (‘fosas’, small ditches), a primary symbolic reason for deciding to do the action on this beach. By creating humanmade ‘fosas’ with shovels, we implicate the water composition of our bodies as they create holes in the sand. Fosas are places of death and life, as we consider presence in our being. With the initial idea of accompanying each other into a type of death, we then asked the many ways we die, live, and are reborn with our many ‘atravesamientos’ (body-soul crossings) of people and histories. How do we sustain one another’s deaths and rebirths? This action ended when the metaphorical gesture almost turned reality. A dear friend stopped a surf rake (truck that rakes the beach sand) seconds before it ran over our resting bodies.

Photos: Renata Ferraz

Photo Performance by Dani d’Emilia & Daniel Chávez
Duration: 2 hours
Materials: Work clothes, camera with tripod, open section of sand on the beach right before and after sunset, two large work shovels.

Procedure: Choose a section of open sand about 4 meters from the beach shore. Dig two body-sized fosas. Get into the fosas and lay facing up with eyes closed. After a while, begin digging hole with one hand at shoulder’s length until the other person is reached. Lie holding hands. Exit fosas.

This work was part of our residency at Roundabout.lx, Lisbon 2015