A place where everything remains in infinite change, 2025

Full HD two-channel video projection with sound, 12 min 19 s and 7 min 55 s; C-print from film negative, double-sided aluminum composite, 29 × 29 cm

The work that I am applying with consists of two videos and six photographs, arranged into four pairs that mirror and narrate with each other. The videos focus on an old well in the village where my grandmother grew up. I remember wandering through the forest as a child to spend time near this mysterious well, standing alone in the woods. Now, I returned to this place throughout the year, documenting myself in relation to it. However, I don’t feel that I’m portraying myself in this work, but rather embodying a character, someone that the viewer might step into as well. Each time, I performed the same ritual: bringing along a camera, tripod, audio recorder; cycling or walking through snow and ice. Bucket, well, well sweep, winch, hatch. I open the well lid, glance at my reflection, lower the bucket into the water, draw it up, pour it into another bucket, take one last look at the reflection staring back at me, close the lid, and walk away. I documented this over the course of nine months. But this well does not exist in a vacuum; it is surrounded by forest, animals, plants, the sea, and a distant highway. It is located in a place where time seems to stand still, yet is so clearly changing every day. I move through this space, searching for a spot where I feel peace. The Sea, the Tree, and the Rock — they have been with me since childhood. There is something sacred about them. Each supports me in its own way: the Sea with its eternal, vast flow; the old pine living and growing calmly; the boulder, seemingly solid and unchanging, yet as its name suggests in Estonian it, too, has traveled here. I photographed them on two consecutive days at exactly the same time of day. The images were taken on film and developed in the darkroom, where, much like the well video, the process is highly ritualistic, based on repeated movements and fixed rules. The videos are projected onto a screen installed in the center of the space. On one side, drawing water; on the other, a slow fading, but both depict cycles: dawn and sunrise, and the passing of seasons. The water is present in both videos, but in quite different roles, in one it acts as a ticking clock, slowly emptying. In the other it is handled by me, drawn out of the depth of the well, poured into another bucket and taken somewhere that remains unknown, yet in some way the water keeps its freedom and fluidity. The photographs are also displayed double-sided: one side showing yesterday, the other tomorrow. I wanted to create an environment in the space where the viewer can move and observe, much like I have moved through the landscape. In these three elements that I have photographed the water also has a presence in each of them. All these repetitions, the passing of each day, may feel slow, even drawn out, yet at the same time, fast and fleeting. I have documented the passage of time, the constancy and change of a place, whether over the course of a year or a single day.