“Bakker’s single-channel video Surfacing brings nature into close proximity with the natural sciences, tracking a snail as it slowly navigates the surface of a screen playing a David Attenborough documentary. The intrepid mollusc goes unnoticed, gliding indifferently through a world beyond the documentary’s frame. Viewed through the pixellated physicality of the screen, Attenborough's appreciation of nature seems curiously removed from the snail's slippery materiality, suggesting the inadequate grasp of western rational thought on the inestimable wonders of the natural world.” Nina Miall

Surfacing 2021
single-channel video with sound
00:04:30 looped

Made with the support of Andy Tetzlaff, James Guerts, Samuel Stewart, Peter Hatzipavlis, Field Carr, and the Bogong Centre for Sound Culture. Incorporates footage from the BBC documentary Life in the Undergrowth (2005), written and presented by Sir David Attenborough

Commissioned for the Tarrawarra Biennial 2021: Slow Moving Waters
Curated by Nina Miall
TarraWarra Museum of Art