3rd place
bronze star award
Zena Holloway
united kingdom 
title
Body of Water
The Earth’s surface is 70 percent water, a proportion that correlates closely to the percentage of water in a human body. Leonardo da Vinci reasoned that the water in rivers came from rainfall and moved through Earth like blood circulating around the body. He knew water was the medium of life and life must have started in water.
Her recent work Flowers for Jeju : The Last Mermaids focuses on the historical and spiritual tradition of the Haenyeo of South Korea. Through the mediums of photography, dance, costume, and narrative, this work explores the unique ancestral relationship between the haenyeo and the oceans during a period of rapid ecological, industrial and technological change.
back to gallery
entry description
This series was photographed in the ocean around the island of Bimini, close to the mystical fountain of youth: a fabled wellspring thought to give everlasting life to whoever bathed in or drank from it. The aim was to reflect man’s influence on the planet’s oceans and other natural water bodies. Amongst the images is a woman standing like Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man on a bed of manmade debris, in another she hangs lifeless. The figures are styled in oily, black shapes, reflective dresses, everyday clothing as well as shown naked.The Earth’s surface is 70 percent water, a proportion that correlates closely to the percentage of water in a human body. Leonardo da Vinci reasoned that the water in rivers came from rainfall and moved through Earth like blood circulating around the body. He knew water was the medium of life and life must have started in water.
about the photographer
Zena Holloway (born 1973 in Bahrain) is an underwater photographic artist living in London. Self-taught, her work deviates from the stereotypical imagery associated with underwater photography. For Holloway the water serves as a space to create, using cinematic drama and painterly aesthetics, she directs her models along themes of universal human experiences associated with our seas and oceans: love, solitude, intimacy and romance.Her recent work Flowers for Jeju : The Last Mermaids focuses on the historical and spiritual tradition of the Haenyeo of South Korea. Through the mediums of photography, dance, costume, and narrative, this work explores the unique ancestral relationship between the haenyeo and the oceans during a period of rapid ecological, industrial and technological change.
back to gallery
