To See the Sea

An image from French artist Sophie Calle's "Voir La Mer."

Artist Sophie Calle is someone whom I hope I’ll have the chance to meet somehow before one of us is no longer. I mean, that kind of thing can go wrong—you meet the admired person after so many years of admiring, get disappointed, etc. But I’d certainly risk it in Calle’s case.

I just saw this article about a recent project she did called “Voir La Mer” (To See the Sea). She invited ten people in Istanbul who had never seen the sea, though the city is surrounded by it, to come to the shore. They went one at a time. Each was blindfolded until reaching the water, then after they’d looked out at it—some took 5 minutes or some took 15—each turned back towards Calle to “give me back those eyes that had just seen the sea.” I wish I could have been there, too.