Extract from a piece on “The Viscous Sea”, 2022
In the summer of 2022, I find myself at a farm next to the shores of the Dead Sea on the side of Jordan. The farm was deserted and oddly silent, leaving me doubtful about this research trip.[1] I spotted the sign ahead in Arabic when my friend Hussam translated for me, “It says to be careful of sinkholes,” in a somber tone. Sinkholes are created due to the receding sea level, and the Dead Sea is a victim of the anthropogenic impacts on the hydrological process.(Vey et al. 2021) Hussam had warned me that exploring this part of the Dead Sea was a bad idea, so I walked toward the shore alone, with my camera—nervously, using my feet as a makeshift seismic sensor, mindful of the sinkhole warnings. By now oscillating between imagination and reality, my mind imagining a sudden descent into earth’s embrace, and on the polar end, thinking that it can’t happen, after all—there was no danger in plain sight, and the land was flat. That was until the sight of sinkholes hit me, a massive swathe of holes in the earth taking over farms and, further north, along the shores. I tread evermore carefully on my way back, mindful of the ground and its discontents.
[1] I was invited by the Singapore Biennale in 2021 to participate in an exchange research residency with Darat Al-Funun in Jordan as part of the Biennale.