Andscape 2: Map of Moving Water with Duck Disturbance

Watercolor pigment and pond water on paper, thread, tape
2021

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To measure the roughness of the surface of moving water, the artist visited a large pond in the south of Berlin, located within a wooded park. There were lots of ducks swimming around near the edge, including a small group of ducklings led by a parent duck. She held up a thick piece of watercolor paper, as if she were holding a landscape painting to look at it, with its long edge oriented north-south. As the ducks passed by, she briefly dipped the paper halfway into the water, then quickly removed it. She turned to the shore and added watercolor paint pigment to the wet paper in order to capture the borderline between the wet and dry halves of the paper. What is visible now on that piece of paper is the limit of the surface of the moving water in that moment, marked by the pigment. To measure the length of that curved edge, a piece of silk thread was laid along it and the end points carefully marked with tape. The resulting thread length was then measured with a ruler.