Roni Horn

Saying Water

Sound piece, 61 min.

This poetic and performative work explores the profound relationship between water and language. Through a reading aloud, Horn transforms a text about water into a sensory, emotional and intellectual experience. Water is evoked in all its forms - fluid, changing, elusive - as a metaphor for identity, memory and time, linked as much to life as to death. Rhythm, silence and repetition reveal the way language can flow, collide or evaporate. Saying Water (The River Thames, for Example) is thus a poetic, sensory meditation that goes beyond words to evoke our intimate, vital link with this fundamental element.

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Roni Horn

Born 1955
Based in New York City

Roni Horn is an artist whose work questions identity, perception and the relationship between man and nature, with a particular interest in water. Since the 1970s, she has developed a multidisciplinary practice combining sculpture, drawing, photography, installation and writing. Iceland, which she has explored regularly since 1975, has had a profound influence on her work. She is known for her solid glass sculptures, with their cylindrical, translucent forms and slightly vibrating surfaces. She has also created public installations, such as Yous in You (1997, revised in 2000), a footbridge to the east of Basel railway station (Peter Merian Haus).