Notes from the second part of our Water Collab
This project is by Vicky White and Viv King. It is the second part of our Water Collaboration. The blog post will be similar for both of us, but each will write our own reflection.
These were our notes prior to meeting up.
Thinking about immersing ourselves in the water, each with our angel wings.
How do we live in a relationship that both sustains and overwhelms us?
Traditionally angels are messengers or guardians, however our wings intend to suggest a freedom and vulnerability, the desire to transcend the human body.
Physically forming our own wings is important because the construction becomes part of ourselves and not merely an inherited trait. We are entering the water as a powerful reversal, not ascending to heaven but descending to an earthy element, not escaping our world but immersing ourselves in it.
The wings become less a symbol of divinity and more about surrender and acceptance. Our baptism in a body of water equalises- questions of religion, and environmental concerns which are all temporarily suspended once we are immersed.
The water is an active participant, we are entering its space, adapting our movement which we cannot fully control.
The collaboration is about both our relationships with water, spiritually, ecologically and bodily and to enter its space is to recognise our dependence on it and an inability to fully possess it or control it.
Our bodies enter not to conquer or perform within it but to acknowledge destructive and holy human interactions and the power of mother nature. The wings suggest transcendence, proposing that transformation can occur on Earth through deeper immersion within it.
The making of my wings.
***
Today, 20th August 2026, Vicky and I worked together on the second part of our Water Collaboration Project. Separately we had each made a pair of angel wings. Mine were linked to my Above and Below series and Vicky’s linked to her art practice relating to religious iconography.
Our journey began as a trial 500 metre swim for both of us, testing the water and our buoyancy using a foam noodle. We both brought our premade wings to the lake and experimented with different ways of attaching them to the noodle, to showcase them at their best. Vicky attached her wings using string and clipped them centrally on her halter swim top. I attached mine using cable ties.
We worked out a plan for filming, again it was too windy to fly the drone, and the weather was very showery. Some photos and video footage were taken from the raised deck, while others were filmed from the pontoon at water level.
As the water is deep, we needed to be as safe as possible, so we also wore fins. The noodles were positioned quite high on our bodies to ensure that the wings were held in the correct position. However, this meant that the noodles provided less buoyancy and made the swimming more of a challenge.
We also experimented with life jackets around our waists, but these were too visible in the shots and distracted from the appearance of the wings, so we decided to abandon this idea.
Our thoughts for the journey were as follows:
- Stills out of the water, together, capturing the wings and our connection as artists and friends, before entering the water.
- Swimming side by side, filming both above and on the water level.
- Swimming together in a 360-degree rotation, representing how water is intertwined with our humanity, everyday life and reflecting on our profound dependence on it.
The materials we used to construct the wings were a combination of natural, recycled and man-made.
Vicky’s wings were made using natural feathers sprayed gold, lace, scraps of various voile fabrics and raw unbleached fabrics and thread. The silver elements were created by using strips from a foil emergency blanket, all attached to a 2 mm lightweight foam base.
My wings were constructed from a 5 mm poly board, recycled water bottles, unbleached raw cotton, raw thread fishing net and natural feathers. I used ochre and blue paint.
Reflection
I felt both the sets of angel wings carried such angelic form as well as creating contrast through our different artistic references as well as their distinctiveness of our individual practices.
There was tension between function and symbolism. Wings traditionally imply flight, freedom and transience, while the water is limited by weight and physicality. Bringing the two together created escape with transcendence making us very much grounded in the water.
The artistic connection Vicky and I share is important to our relationship and our practices. We committed to this one day to being a success and we had one opportunity to make this work, regardless of the weather. We both had a real sense of commitment to make this happen.
We both felt it was a huge success, including the rain which just added to the frame. We were genuinely thrilled with the outcome, not only the still images but also the short videos of our journey.
Seeing the work exist in both forms, the stills holding the constructed quality of the wings as well as the moving images capturing the physicality, instability and presence of the open water.
Our human dependence on water and the increasingly unstable relationship we have with our environment, water is essential for our survival as a human race. However it’s destructiveness through flooding, rising water levels and these extreme weather conditions we are experiencing (August 2026), can threaten and overwhelm us.
After weeks of dry weather, it showered heavily on the day. The rain became an integral part of the work. Rather than working round it, it brought a sense of immediacy to the process, physically working with the wider environment was suddenly quite demanding, always questioning our relationship with it and our dependance on it.
The work brings together our physical dependance on water, our vulnerability to environmental and climate change and the spiritual associations of the angelic form. The wings suggest the possibility of escape but the weight of the water brings us back to the body, the environment and the fundamental reality that us as humans can not exist without it.
The final videos….two versions.
Credit should be given to my daughter for filming everything under very precise instructions. We couldn’t have achieved this without her.
Outward facing feedback.
The video was sent out to approximately 65 people.
Many haven’t responded, but the ones who did, see below.
- How was it planned?It looks amazing and feels like a really big installation, thinking out of the box. I never thought of doing that myself.Well done for that its great to see it from that perspective.Excellent photography and filming.
2. Love it. It was powerful having all that rain at the end, it pulled everything together for me – I got the message to us in myriad ways and yet we misuse it and try to control it, yet ultimately it is beyond our control and we should respect it for that.
3. I really enjoyed the film, I kept thinking are they cold? Is it safe for them to be in the water? Is it polluted? What did it feel like in the water? You were lovely water nymphs and I could feel you really cared about the water. I thought it was a really emotive soundtrack. Well done to both of you, very brave and you both looked lovely.
4. I love your video, totally bonkers but absolutely fabulous.
5. I love it.
6. Well done – it made me smile. What fun! So question if you want one for – You refer to the liminal space between above and below the water, but you never actually fully cross that boundary – your heads remain above the surface. Is this a refusal to be fully cleansed by the water? Is the refusal to fully submerse in the water important to the work?
7. Very excellent! The drone footage makes it look very polished: congrats. I also felt the tension mentioned, I know you probably didn’t want to get your wet, but that limit did come across. Extra marks for collaboration: that gave the piece something a solo venture would have lacked and I think its more successful for how you did it.
8. The format, shooting video was brilliant, very engaging and very impactful. Well done for production and editing. Really, really good, lots of fun to make. The wings really drew attention to the water by floating, in contrast to the bodies, above and below the surface. Enhanced by our movement, especially when we were spinning and holding each other. Very visually striking.
I liked the text because it draws you in, thinking and contemplating. I paused the video after seeing the words and phrases. It got me thinking about things. I liked the waters surface as a physical and metaphorical mirror reflecting man’s behaviour. It’s such a simple thing to say and in your head you know what humanity has done with pollution, it doesn’t need anything else, its a very simple message.
The spiritual element, physical immersion, the baptism deeply connected to the emotional response creating a connection to the natural world often lacking.
Rene Descartes – he introduces this idea of mind and body being separate, in modern society this has become reliant on the mind, the rational, the logical and sometimes dismissing the direction sensoria’s response you have. This creates a more holistic experience, you use the term equalises and that to me felt like the mind, the emotion and the body being reunited, connected and closer to nature.
You express in text ‘the submission blurs the boundaries’ this makes the experience more honest and real.
Last thing I thought about – our ancestors would have given inanimate objects and places, rivers and mountains, names and stories based on legends and myths and this brings the river or mountain to life. In the human world it keeps equalising humans into the natural world and visa versa, not separate but all linked.
I was interested whether there were any linked to your body of water. In the future could it be that the two guardian angels that lived in the river and taught the humans about power.
9. Viv!!! This is absolutely incredible. The visuals the sound, the words provoke both thought and emotion. I felt so connected, not only with my own feelings but it made me so much more aware of the beauty that surrounds me and that of natures very own living breathing soul. it was both authentic and authoritative, affecting me deeply with its powerful narrative.
I am heading out into the garden in the rain to just stand in its beauty, respect its power and connect me with both the heart and mind. Thank you so much for sharing this.
10. Brilliant ! sorry to be a little bit late to the party. I too got the head above water tension mentioned above – and because of that I couldn’t help seeing you both as rather graceful swans when you had backs to the camera with your hair resembling bodies (and power of suggestion of the swan at the beginning no doubt). Especially loved the shots where (on my screen at least) the water ran into the white boarder of the padlet surround – it gave a sense of ‘endlessness’ and shoved another liminal space into the mix, that of the boundary between your screen and mine. Fascinating!
11. Thank you for sharing your work with me. The piece made me think and the idea of water being a mirror reflecting our destruction of our beautiful planet’s life blood was very clever. As a piece of art I am more passionate about visual art but knowledge that the spoken word is an art form in itself.
A really lovely piece of work, well thought out and presented and certainly areminder of what is important in our world.
Well done!
