sophie calle // voir la mer // 2011

i came across this article on vice featuring a beautiful, simple and touching video of a man seeing the ocean for the first time shot by conceptual artist sophie calle. i've always seen the ocean as my own sort of temple. nature is innately inspiring, but everything seems to come together at the beach.

i also felt connected to this excerpt from her interview:

sophie butcher: when you were younger, i heard you didn't want to be an artist.
sophie calle: it's not that i didn't want to be an artist, i didn't think of it.

sophie butcher: but now...
sophie calle: but now i'm 62 and it's the complete opposite, i can't think of not being an artist. now when i walk in the street, i think how can i use it? i hear a phrase, i register it, and think how can this be an idea? i'm aware in situations, i think of how i can use or transform it. yesterday, i spent 12 hours in the hospital of montreal. i have a little health problem. in those 12 hours there were two to three hours where i was afraid, two to three where i was bored, because it was very long, and two to three where i thought, what can i do with this? as life happens a project is always a possibility. but when i go eat with a friend, i'm not thinking what's the possibility of this becoming a project? when i'm at a nightclub, i'm not watching, thinking who can i photograph? but phrases, an article in the newspaper—not my love life, not my friend's life—but an event has potential. there are many things in life that i don't use... and sometimes, i'm invited to istanbul and i have to find an idea—a project sometimes just appears in a miraculous way."

well said. and interesting that it was a dialogue between two women named sophie.