(a) SURFACE TENSION / Tracing Stadssundet   (performance)

A woman, dressed in an orange life jacket, uses a floor mop to trace the invisible path of the former Stadssundet, a historic waterway now concealed beneath Kanalesplanaden, the city’s main pedestrian mall. Her action follows its subterranean course, once connecting the surrounding sea bays before being enclosed in concrete pipes and buried beneath the developing city. The wet marks left by the mop become a temporary drawing, briefly returning the forgotten waterway to the surface of the city. 

The performance reflects Jakobstad’s transforming landscape, shaped over thousands of years by post-glacial rebound. As the land continues to rise following the retreat of the Ice Age glaciers, the relationship between land, water and the city continues to shift. What was once an open waterway has been progressively contained and concealed through both geological change and urban development.

The orange life jacket evokes rescue, warning and survival, while the mop becomes an unlikely tool for mapping and remembrance. Through this simple act, the woman becomes a storyteller without words, tracing a lost waterway and making visible a fragment of the city’s submerged landscape.

(b) SURFACE TENSION / LOST DATUM   (installation)

A tall, cut-out paper ladder made from locally milled paper stretches towards the ground, yet remains suspended just above it, creating an impossible gesture. Beneath the ladder, a circular stencil echoes the design of a local Jakobstad brunnslock (access cover), creating a visual threshold between the city’s surface and the hidden infrastructure below. The brunnslock connects the installation to Kidall’s performance Surface Tension / Tracing Stadssundet, in which she, dressed in an orange life jacket, maps the former course of Stadssundet with a floor mop across the pavements of Kanalesplanaden.

Together, the works traces two hidden movements: the lost horizontal flow of water and the ongoing vertical rise of the land. One maps what has become invisible beneath the city; the other measures a ground in motion.