Cantabria (Spain), 2025

Installation composed of seven suspended braids and a sound piece that explores the connection between human bodies and the watery bodies of the planet.

Hair symbol of identity, memory, and fertility becomes here a bridge between the biological and the artificial, the living and the residual.

The braids, woven from synthetic material black at the core and blue on the surface evoke both the organic nature of human hair and the plasticity of waste polluting the oceans. Within their intertwining lies a duality: they are umbilical cords, nets, roots but also fragments of a deteriorating landscape, trapped in time.

At the center of the composition, a braid disheveled by the sea breaks the symmetry. This braid was worn by the artist during a performative action in the ocean, where water and waves intervened in its shape and color. It is the only one that has “lived” the sea, and its wear and tear becomes a testimony to the environment’s impact on bodies.

Accompanying the installation is a sound piece composed of ocean sounds, the rustling of hair, and the artist’s voice, narrating the interdependence between bodies and water, between the human and the aquatic, between what forms us and what we destroy.

“Watery Roots” is a reminder that we are water that our trace, like plastic, does not disappear, but transforms, sinks, and returns.

Charleen Capote