Marina Berio

Occasionally, I experience a sort of periodic blindness during which I stop understanding what it is I am trying to accomplish; I advance slowly and am hyper-aware of the possibility of failure. Recently, I enclosed myself in a completely dark room and made some self-portraits by touch. This one doesn’t describe what I look like, or what I remember looking like; it’s a record of where my hands covered with charcoal had access to open naked paper while my mouth and nose spoke to it. Facial features were touch and the rest was flow, and when I turned the lights back on, the boat shape was an utter surprise. Driving a car, we have a feeling of control, self-determination, and direction.  Drifting in a boat, on the other hand, is more like surfing: wind and water can each be moving in different directions and they push the vessel with surprising force. On the open water, there are no fixed markings by which to orient oneself; weather and tides are just as important as intention.