Untitled (from the series Still Water (The River Thames, for Example)) 1999

Curator: The almost monochrome photograph presents a restless, dark body of water. Editor: Yes, it's undeniably unsettling. It has an ominous quality, a surface that appears both reflective and impenetrable. Curator: That’s because it’s an image extracted from Roni Horn’s series "Still Water (The River Thames, for Example)", created in 1999. Editor: "Still Water" feels like a provocation, given the movement captured in the photograph. There’s nothing still about this. The title seems laden with irony, perhaps highlighting our limited ability to truly capture the fluidity of lived experiences. It seems like an interrogation of control versus chaos. Curator: Absolutely, and this contrast is further emphasized when you consider Horn’s repeated focus on water. Rivers have long symbolized the passage of time, constant change, and even purification across many cultures. Editor: In this case, I think about pollution, both visible and invisible, that might lurk beneath the surface. We imbue the Thames with romantic significance, but it is undeniably a working river, a site of immense labor, resource extraction, and waste disposal that feeds capitalist engine, right? Curator: Precisely. Rivers absorb both our dreams and our discards. The light glancing off the waves, it almost reads like veins and arteries, and I can not help but think that it gives the Thames almost anthropomorphic quality. Editor: So, perhaps the piece becomes a meditation on vulnerability, then, holding space for both exploitation and ecological reckoning, not just aesthetic appreciation. Horn, after all, is drawn to these sites of confluence—Iceland, the Thames—and there is a cultural responsibility for recognizing what they hold. Curator: Thank you for expanding our view of Horn’s choice, through cultural study and context. Editor: And thank you, as always, for tracing our lineage to what our art says and leaves behind in symbols.