At The Edge

The romantics believed that seafaring gave you a sense of nearing the eternal; it was the closest to the sublime you could experience. At sea, with no reference points, floating on a liquid medium, all sense of reality as we know it on land is lost. Edmund Burke’s Philosophical Inquiry into the Origins of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) discusses the power of the sublime. Sublimity considers wonder in things unknown, such as nature or the divine which also includes “some degree of horror.” Burke suggests the ocean as the perfect example. The ocean can be dangerous, powerful, unpredictable, boundless, dark, and there are many things which we are ignorant of in the ocean. When one looks out on the ocean, there is a sense of “astonishment…that state of the soul in which all it's motions are suspended.” The ocean arouses our curiosity and is worthy of our admiration, but it also enlivens feelings of terror. Ten years ago, Kristianne sailed across the Pacific Ocean and during her 27 days at sea, sailed through the Intertropical Convergence Zone where the northeast and southeast trade winds come together. Every day was the same sea and sky but every day was very different from the changes in wind and light. Kristianne's cinematic diptychs capture the emotion and awe of her experience in sailing across the Pacific Ocean.