"At The Edge" /  by Dorota Borowa

Whilst lying on the deck of the Antigua I let the water rock me. I gave up control. Yet I realised after a while that I was still gently counterbalancing. I tried to give up that too. I thought about the navigators in the days of old who could sense the motion of the water and 'see' what was coming by lying on the deck with their eyes closed. Their eyesight was a distraction. Sometimes we see better with our eyes closed. I let the water take me to places which I hadn't known about myself.

Nothing felt stable on the boat and it seemed a natural way of being, life is constantly changing and only uncertainty is certain.

Isn’t this gentle rocking a way of being closer to nature, a womb like state. Why is the ground where I live so hard and stepping on it doesn’t bring back memories? We all come from the sea. But have we forgotten? Maybe if the ground was delicately moving we would remember more clearly that we are just passers by on this planet.

The series “At The Edge” was created on the Antigua during my Arctic Circle Residency in June 2023. It consists of 9 works (5 x 7 inch). In the act of assisting water in painting an image, rather than exerting total control, I spread the glacier water with a few drops of watercolour on the paper and I allowed the materials to react organically. The boat, rocked by the waves, was moving the water whilst the paint and water dried. Looking at this process was hypnotizing. The works were balancing at the edge of destruction as any bigger movement of the boat would cause the water to flow off the paper and destroy them.

"At The Edge"
5 x 7 inch
sailing from Gåshamna to Van Muydenbukta
Summer Solstice 21-22.06.2023

The Arctic Circle / Hansbukta /  by Dorota Borowa


I came across this quote again by @cristinleach from her book “Negative Space”: “I feel safe in nature. I feel safe in art. They both contain beginnings and ends. They both take me in and out. They both take me to the edge of my heart.” which I love so much. In this particular place in the Arctic all the dimensions seemed to collapse: there was no depth, length, height and time seemed to be irrelevant too. There were no points of references to rest your eyesight on nor to trigger any thoughts. Your mind starts mirroring this vastness and a feeling of dissolving creeps into you. There is no beginning and no end as every end is a beginning of something else and it is ok. It gives you peace and a feeling that you are a small part of something you can’t imagine nor understand but you had a privilege to peep on.

The Arctic Circle Residency /  by Dorota Borowa


It's been 4 days since I came back from Spitsbergen. I've been trying to find words to express what I experienced in the Arctic but my language (neither Polish or English) fails me. I look for some landmarks around me to refer to and to compare to so to describe the landscape but I cannot find any. If you can imagine a place which makes you cry because you are so enchanted by it, that's the Arctic for me. But it is unimaginable so you stand no chance. Even when you look at it it still stays unimaginable. I left a piece of my heart over there and the longing for this place will always be with me. And it is ok as I feel absolutely privileged to have been able to see it.