36.5 / A Durational Performance with the Sea
Sarah Cameron Sunde is an American, New York based interdisciplinary environmental artist. Her most notable work to date is 36.5 / A Durational Performance with the Sea, a public, video, and performance artwork made in collaboration with water and communities across the world.
art, artist, water, visual
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36.5 / A Durational Performance with the Sea

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36.5 / a durational performance with the sea

36.5 / A Durational Performance with the Sea (2013 – 2022) is a series of nine site-specific performances and video art works that take place in bodies of water around the world. New York-based artist Sarah Cameron Sunde stands in a tidal area for a full cycle, usually 12-13 hours, as water engulfs her body and then reveals it again. The public is invited to participate by joining Sarah in the water and by marking the passing hours from the shore; the local community is involved in all aspects of creating the work.  The project began in Maine 2013 as a response to Hurricane Sandy’s impact on New York City and the parallel that Sunde saw in the the struggle for artists to survive on a daily basis in the city and the struggle of humanity to survive in the face of sea-level rise.

Each work in the 36.5 series consists of a live performance, event, a time- lapse video, varied ephemera from that specific coastal location, and a long-form cinematic video artwork that is the same length as the performance (12-13 hours). The performance is filmed from multiple perspectives, live-streamed around the world and then edited quickly into its durational form which is then translated into site-specific multi-channel video installations that can be shown in galleries, museums, and projected onto architecture in outdoor spaces.

List of works:

Initial Performance Works:

36.5 / Bass Harbor, Maine, 2013
36.5 / Akumal Bay, Mexico, 2014
36.5 / San Francisco Bay, California, 2014

Full Works (Performance and Durational Video Artworks):

36.5 / North Sea, Netherlands, 2015
36.5 / Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh, 2017
36.5 / Bay of All Saints, Brazil, 2019
36.5 / Bodo Inlet, Kenya, 2019
36.5 / Te Manukanukatanga ō Hoturoa, Aotearoa-New Zealand, 2022
36.5 / New York Estuary, New York City, 2022

Link to ongoing list of collaborators, funders, and partners.

For more information, including a bibliography, please visit 36pt5.org.

Left column media ID: Video 1: Global Story; Video 2: Timelapse of durational work 36.5 / North Sea, Netherlands, 2015; Video 3: Timelapse of durational work 36.5 / Bodo Inlet, Kenya, 2019; Video 4: Split screen excerpt from durational work 36.5 / Te Manukanukatanga ō Hoturoa, Aotearoa-New Zealand, 2022; Video 5: Split screen excerpt from durational work 36.5 / New York Estuary, New York City, 2022; Video 6: 5 channel 36.5 installation; Video 7: Community responses + durational work from 36.5 / San Francisco Bay, California, 2014; Photo 8: Dutch water officials join Sunde in the water in 36.5 / North Sea, Netherlands, 2015; Photo 9: Nine select images from 36.5 / Bass Harbor, Maine, 2013; Video 10: 36.5 / Netherlands — video + public engagement iteration at Oerol; Video 11: 36.5 / Bay of Bengal — behind the scenes