Walking on Water

2021

Wool felt, velvet

20 × 300 × 20 cm

Walking on Water is a performative footwear work that expands through movement. Beginning as a single pair of shoes, the form extends and unfolds as the performer walks, producing an elongated, wave‑like structure. The material lengthens incrementally, transforming each step into a visible record of passage rather than a fleeting act.

The unfurling textile evokes the physical behaviour of water - rippling, folding, and responding to motion, while also referencing collective movement and shared agency. Walking becomes a distributed action, where progress is generated cumulatively rather than individually. The work’s scale develops through use, with repetition, proximity duration.

Created for the Venice Design Biennial, the piece draws on histories of women whose labour and mobility sustained informal networks of care, knowledge, and economic survival. Activated through performance but retained as an artefact, Walking on Water frames walking as both symbolic and material - an act of continuity, support, and forward motion shaped by community rather than isolation.