Immersion

For fifty years, Massachusetts-based Finnish photographer Arno Rafael Minkkinen (b. 1945) has created a series of self-portraits in the natural environment, contorting his body into sculptural shapes that surprise and amuse. In Oulujärvi Afternoon, Minkkinen’s semi-immersed body communes with the water, creating the illusion of a glistening rock.

In 1978-82 California native Larry Sultan (1946-2009), determined to overcome his fear of immersion, undertook a project to photograph underwater in Bay Area public pools, capturing unexpected choreographies of colorful figures distorted and reflected by the rippling water. Born and raised in Hawaii, Kanoa Zimmerman’s black-and-white photograph Diver 10 reveals a diver, isolated and suspended in a seemingly infinite expanse of gray space in which time seems stretched and life on land a distant reality. “Light behaves differently underwater. It bends and slows down, giving rise to optical phenomena,” observes Zimmerman. “Our movements and heart rate also slow, our bodies suspended as if weightless. Without the normal metronome of breathing, time seems to stretch... There is a dreamlike quality to being underwater, a feeling of being removed from yourself.”  

Best known for her carefully staged portraits of adolescent girls exploring the psychological tension and ambiguity of this transitional stage of life, Dutch artist Hellen van Meene (b. 1972) created a modern-day Ophelia floating atop shallow water.  Also focusing on young women, Justine Kurland’s (b. 1969) Bathers, a seminal work from her landmark series Girl Pictures (1997-2002), features a group of girls who lived on a commune and spent the summer along the banks of a river in Southwest Virginia. Based out of New York, much of Kurland’s work has been made on the road, where she says she focuses on “a space where the female experience is foregrounded and affirmed through mutual recognition of one another… where performances became actual exchanges of intimacy and protection.” Originally from a farm in suburban New York and currently living in California, Lucas Foglia’s (b. 1983) interest lies in the intersection of human beliefs systems and the natural world. For his series A Natural Order, Foglia spent five years interviewing and photographing people that chose to live off the grid in the southeast American backwoods.

In the images of Georgia-based photographer Mark Steinmetz (b. 1961) and South Africa-based visual activist Zanele Muholi (b. 1972), water serves as a transformative medium. Steinmetz’s image of a young boy waist deep in a river as he is being baptized examines the idea of immersion in water as an act of spiritual cleansing and rebirth. In their self-portrait Manzi I, West Coast, Cape Town, 2021, Zanele Muholi emerges from the depths of water as a powerful, goddess-like figure confronting the viewer with a penetrating gaze. The image is drawn from their series Somnyama Ngonyama (“Hail the Dark Lioness”) which explores themes of racism, sexuality, and the politics of possessing a Black body. 

Throughout their careers, Czech-born artist Jitka Hanzlová (b. 1958) and Yokohama-based photographer Masao Yamamoto (b. 1957) have looked to animals and plant life for their inspiration. In her extended project WATER 2013-2019, Hanzlová traveled the world to examine water in all its different states. Taken in Mauritius, her image of a reef shark swimming silently through the crystal-clear Indian Ocean showcases the artist’s wondrous approach to the natural world. Yamamoto’s small, intimate handmade photographs of overlooked moments in nature are informed by animism and Japanese aesthetic traditions.