The artist seeks to address the severed relationship between the landscape and the viewer.

An article in Hyperallergic by Nicole Miller.

Sarah Cameron Sunde, “36.5 / Bay of All Saints (test shots)” (2019) (photo by Guilherme Burgos and Sarah Cameron Sunde)

The city of Salvador in northeast Brazil sits on a peninsula that divides the Atlantic Ocean from the Bay of All Saints. At the foot of a bluff that looks onto the bay is the stony shore of a small cove and the Museu de Arte Moderna (MAM). When New York-based artist Sarah Cameron Sunde walks into the water at low tide on April 2, she’ll stand in the bay for 12 hours while the water rises to her chin, then recedes. “There is true and real suspense in not knowing how it will all unfold,” Sunde tells me, reflecting on her upcoming performance, 36.5 / Bay of All Saints.
The work is part of a series titled 36.5 / A Durational Performance with the Sea that began in Maine in 2013 and will cover six continents before arriving in New York City in 2020 for the artist’s ninth and final performance. Prompted by Hurricane Sandy, which devastated New York City in 2012, 36.5 is an investigation of individual and collective vulnerability and resilience.

Sarah Cameron Sunde, “36.5 / North Sea, (Audience Participation)” (2015), Katwijk aan Zee, The Netherlands (photo by Florian Braakman and Sarah Cameron Sunde)

Sarah Cameron Sunde, “36.5 / Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh” (2017) (photo by Saiful Wadud Helal and Sarah Cameron Sunde)