Sam Baardman

sambaardman.com. @sambaardman

On a bitter cold day in January 2017, I fell through the ice on the Red River near Winnipeg. It was -20 degrees, and I was hyperventilating immediately, dangling in a hole with just my head and forearms protruding.

The water pounded against my body and pulled at my legs. If I succumbed I would be swept under the ice, with no way to swim against the current back to the hole. In that moment, I was sure that I was dead. Eventually I pushed upwards. The edges of the ice held, and I emerged from the hole like a seal.

In the ensuing days, I couldn’t shake a feeling of lasting dread. A week later, I took my camera and walked to a distant spot along the shore of Lake Winnipeg. I set the timer and stepped into the howling wind while the shutter fired.

It was the beginning of a two-year journey. I returned as often as possible to the forests, lake shores and riversides to find myself both in front of and behind the camera. Early in the project, I tried to find natural forms that aligned with my own human form, so that my body became a part of the landscape and the landscape became a part of me. I tried to lose myself in the waters, on the ice, among the trees and on the shorelines.

Eventually the stress of that harrowing event gave way to something else - a new awareness of the lakeland and its beauty. For me this project became more than resolving a conflict left over from a traumatic event.

Healing myself involved falling in love again with a fragile and beautiful world. This exhibition is made up of self-portraits as well as other images of figures immersed in nature.

Sam Baardman