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Film Synopsis
A Taiwanese artist just moved to Berlin to find inspiration in the city's lakes. While immersed in
water, he worked through his reflection on the water dress and traced back to his roots in the sub-
tropical low mountains and sea water in his home land. “To work with water, you need to learn about
everything that is not water.” Using water as medium, he tells a story not only about a dress, but
also about a sense of being human. What is a dress? What is nationality? What is gender? And
most importantly, what is an island? His answer was a poetic one, called, “The Water Dress”.
“I am floating in a lake that’s part of a stream, a one sided channel finding ways from elsewhere to
here, where it continues to somewhere far, far away.”
Above is true to me in many ways. Some people asked me what is this dress about, I think, it
is about three things. One, it is about a dress for senses in the mind that is asleep. Two, it is about a
film for selves in bodies that are sleeping. And three, it is a discussion about creating a space for
crossing boundaries toward freedom. Diving is part of my process of creating The Water Dress but
the film isn’t about diving but more about the sense of working for a thing, the sense of a shifting
processing, the sense of a self transforming, the sense of becoming, the sense of being elsewhere
but here, in a sense, senses lost or ghosted, senses not included in the five senses, a sense of self. In a
built environment like Taipei, Berlin, or any cities, when you become part of it, it is really difficult to
not emplace yourself in it yet I think The Water Dress serves as a work of trans-placement while
the body remains temporarily displaced on land.
Credits
Lin Ni on Direction & Editing
Iita Poijula on Cinematography
Ingrid Loftsgarden on Sound
Lillian Siao and Chen Zhi Xuan for Underwater Assistance
Augusto Matte for Production Consultant
Funded & Supported by Taiwan Pitch, CNEX, Professor Jean May Tsiang Foundation