LUISA SPINA

The project was born in the city of Porto during a residency period of two months and inspired by the documentary ‘Fire at Sea’, in which the contrasting worlds of refugees and locals on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa merge in the realisation that both have to leave their own land in search for a better life.

Extracts from conversations stimulated by meditation techniques and soundscapes collected from the streets from Porto, exploring the image of looking out at the infinite horizon by the sea; guiding participants through an imaginative journey from the shore to place beyond the horizon.

I had a hard time at the beginning deciding as well but it was like the choice of two things...you said something that happened recently maybe...so I was like Ah ok me and Stuart, the guy who used to live in this room, we walked to For the first week we were here so I was imagining that. So every time I go to the west coast of Europe and get to the ocean like I always wave to America...I also grew up on an island and Ialways feel like my family is the first, on the first line of United States,but I also, because I grew up on an island, I spent a lot of time by the ocean and actually I have a really strong relationship with... So it was hard because I chose this one time I went to Foz here but really, there’s so many more and so much stronger images of being on the east coast of America then here. And so I kept going back and forth and I’m always fascinated... I think a lot of Americans are fascinated with having this tie back to Europe, to European roots, because you feel you don’t have roots in America, I don’t have family I could see there. And then, the one thing... so... I never went under water or walked on water I just treaded water the whole time. I always... I feel like...I'm not an amazing swimmer but I could tread water for my entire life. I feel completely... I never feel not safe when I’m treading water, even huge waves,it’s fine, just go under and go back up, and you tread water and go back under...so yeah when the storm came, I think I just imagined my face like tin,cause it did have that effect: wait, the rain is hitting something is not hitting water, it’s hitting something else, so I just felt like I was street,the roof or whatever. But it was nice, it was peaceful, I was not stressed out in the storm. I was still treading water and then, it’s funny cause I was also thinking about the Azores, cause I was just there and I'm going there again but also because we also talked about the Azores because that’s where my mum’s family was originally from. And so there was like, when I was growing up we always talked about it, but it’s funny because none of us had never been there...as Americans you have no history so you are constantly re-chain history that you know very really little about. And I was thinking how said I am that I've never taken a boat across the Atlantic Ocean, It feels like my whole experience going from one side... this exchange between America and Europe in my life. And I feel very weird that I’ve never been in the ocean, in the middle of the Atlantic, except in Azores. I’ve never like seen what it feels like to just float in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. I was like...I probably spent 5minutes thinking... I wonder if there are cruises you can take...I know the stories from my great great grand parents going across and it was like the most awful trip of your life, people vomiting the whole time. And it actually sounds like quite miserable...

For moments at the beginning was justmemories...

But then it’s just...

Some points were vague for me because I don’tknow if  I was flying, swimming orwalking through the sea...

It was quite a thing and then I thought this islimitless, the horizon will never stop you can reach land and then you continueand the horizon will continue, it’s never ending...

At the beginning when I had to think of amemory for me, I grew up on an island, so I was surrounded by water. I have somany dramatic teenage experiences... go the beach and think, contemplate myfuture...there’s lots of those like that in my memory...

But I think I picked one that was most recentand my uncle it’s been very sick with cancer and we went for a walk along thebeach and I didn’t know whether it would be the last walk with him. And thatwas quite recently and so that stay with me as the most important.

When you said to go, I really didn’t want toleave him, how I couldn’t leave him, cause you said to go and I don’t want togo so he said ‘can I come with you?’ So I said ‘yes come with me’. So we wenton this journey together.

I think the mode of transport; the way I gotthrough it was a big thing for me, because it changed from memory then toimagination. Because my uncle was into science-fi and astral-projection and allthese crazy things, we went on a rocket! Of course!