In The Water Series, Naomi Jaye immerses the public in a profound, personal exploration of loss

Inspired by her personal journey through the depths of loss, Toronto-based artist Naomi Jaye presents The Water Series, an immersive video art installation that explores the relationship between water and grief. In a collaboration between Tremendous Productions, Harbourfront Centre, and Princess Margaret UHN, this nine-screen, twenty-speaker installation has enveloped the Harbourfront Centre Theatre, captivating visitors through sound, moving imagery and architecture.

Coinciding with Breast Cancer Awareness Month, The Water Series is offered free to the public until October 22, 2023,  This release holds a special significance for Jaye, as the three parts of her exhibit intimately explore the years following her mother’s battle with breast cancer. 

In The Water Series,  the strong emotions she felt after losing her mother “manifested themselves in very clear images and ideas that became this installation.” After her mother died of breast cancer ten years ago, Jaye started swimming at her local pool and getting annual MRIs. “The grief I felt was profound, like I was constantly surrounded by water, at times drowning and at times floating. This installation is an emotional record of that time, of how grief can be funny, absurd, quiet, and calm. It is complex.”

Of the installation’s three parts, MRI came first, and was presented as a standalone in 2020 at The Meridian Arts Centre. Shortly after her mother’s death, Jaye was told she would be part of a high-risk breast cancer clinic, which meant she would need to get a breast MRI – “a very specific kind of experience” – every year: “ You are naked, save your underwear, socks and an open hospital gown. You are propelled, lying face down on a kind of platform, into a white tube. It takes a half-hour, and you must remain completely still, lying on your stomach with your breasts hanging down through two slots in the platform like pendulums, arms by your sides. The sound these machines make is extraordinarily violent and extraordinarily loud. It is very claustrophobic.”  

While inside the machine, Jaye wondered if someone were lying inside this machine with her, underneath her, what would this look like? “That is how the idea for the first piece in the series MRI came about.” While she was filming the video loops at the centre of MRI, Jaye would watch Dora Award-winning choreographer and dancer Molly Johnson’s performance on a monitor – over and over, take after take. “Eventually, the image started to morph; it started to look like Molly was moving in water, trapped in a tank filled with water. This is what grief feels like to me, like being trapped in water, only you never know how the water will behave. Will it crash? Will its currents rob you of control? Will it gently pull you under?  Will you become waterlogged? Or will you float, lulled by its rhythm?”

The other two parts of the series – POOL and SAIL –  came quickly, and then all three came together as The Water Series. MRI invites viewers to witness a woman’s experience within the magnetic resonance imaging machine, which is a cornerstone of breast cancer screening. POOL, where visitors find themselves within the intimate surroundings of a community pool changing room, observing women undress, is based on the time Jaye spent in the change room at her local pool after her mother died. And the third installation SAIL provides a moment of integrative respite. In this calm oasis within the exhibit, viewers are bathed in serene waters and experience a fleet of twenty boats constructed out of women’s underwear and MRI slides. SAIL also features an interactive element, which allows visitors to create origami boats with messages about their own experiences with grief.

All parts of the series involved “their own challenges,” Jaye explains. The physicality of “MRI,” in which Johnson pushed her limits with repeated, arduous performances, “was difficult” and strenuous. And for “POOL”, Jaye had to find five women willing to be filmed as they transformed from their swimsuits into their street clothes, post-swim, at a local pool. “The women I found were amazing and generous with their time,” she smiles, underscoring the sense of warmth and camaraderie that pervaded the project.

In addition to creating art, Jaye’s company Tremendous Productions creates community programming around its works, as a way of connecting with and supporting other artists. This programming includes an artist talk featuring Naomi Jaye and Molly Johnson, as well as two workshops (both at capacity). “Written in Water Poetry & Movement Workshop,” led by Fan Wu, mirrors the installation’s themes by exploring the relationship between water and grief, and the transformative potential of water as a vessel for change. The “Threads of Change Mix Media Workshop,” facilitated by Registered Psychotherapists (Qualifying) Luci Dilkus and Vitina Filiberto, presents a therapeutic opportunity for participants to reflect on grief and loss using the arts, by transforming a personal article of clothing or piece of fabric into a creative offering. And Tremendous Productions immortalizes the works created during these events in zines. Audiences can learn more about the company’s workshops and zines on tremendousproductions.ca.

Moving beyond The Water Series, audiences also know Jaye for her debut feature film THE PIN. It garnered rave reviews upon its theatrical release in North America, with the New York Times declaring “it is almost bewildering to think what this first-time feature director could build with a larger budget.” Her second feature film, THE INCIDENT REPORT, adapted from Martha Baillie’s Giller long-listed novel of the same name, stars Britt Lower and Tom Mercier with Charlie Kaufman as an executive producer. It is scheduled for release in 2024. And Jaye also continues to investigate the architecture of installation at Queens University, where she is completing a PhD.

The Water Series is more than just an artistic endeavor for Jaye: it’s a living record and an act of therapy. “Creating The Water Series is the process I went through to navigate all the feelings and thoughts I have been having since my mum passed away.“ 

As such, audiences will find The Water Series a fascinating access point for both the personal and the universal, the intentional and the intuitive: “Creating art is the way I process the events and emotions in my life . . .  although it is not always a conscious act”. 

The Water Series continues until October 22, 2023 at Haroourfront Centre. For exact hours and more information, visit harbourfrontcentre.com and tremendousproductions.ca. 

© Arpita Ghosal, Sesayarts Magazine, 2023