Lisa Dahl
Under Water, 2013
Digital video, live action, 5:05
On loan from the Artist
On view in the E. Craig Wall, Jr. Academic Center from October 4 – November 21st, 2020.
Please note: All buildings on campus, including the Wall Center, are only open to Davidson students, faculty, and staff due to the pandemic. We are planning to re-screen videos at a later date when the campus opens to the community! Sign up for our mailing list to stay in the loop.
Lisa Dahl received her BA from Bowdoin College and an MFA from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. She has exhibited her work at Mass MoCA, Hunter College, the NYC DOT Urban Art Program, and Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, among many other venues nationally and internationally. In 2019, she was selected by Staten Island Arts for a Future Culture Creative Placemaking Grant as well as an Art Fund Grant. In 2006, she was selected for a Residency Fellowship and Travel Award by the MacDowell Colony.
Artist Statement: Using the symbol of the home as an idealistic icon, I explore the ideas we attach to home ownership as well as what these buildings evoke for us: from personal dreams to environmental concerns; urban planning to economic issues. Working in a variety of artistic media, I investigate the love-hate relationship I often have with the house by using playfulness and humor in my critiques. I see the house in an anthropomorphic way –a stand in for our diverse and complicated lives.
Named after the euphemistic term for owing more on your house than it is worth, this video takes a literal approach to that terminology in its treatment of these images from foreclosed real estate listings. Each house is printed on an inkjet printer and sprayed with water until the ink starts to run down the page. The resultant water damage erodes the facades while also referencing the aftermath of natural disasters.
The video was originally part of a larger installation that included a storefront space emulating a real estate office. The flyer listings, however, include in their text the unexpected addition of a memory of the lives of the fictional people these houses once provided shelter for–revealing an intimate story of these dwellings as private, personal homes.
Intern Martha Tripsa ’24 interviewed Dhal about her video and how it explores the idea behind homeownership as a personal concept.
Martha: What does the water damage on the photos represent, and how does it relate to Underwater’s title?
Ms. Dahl: Well, the title is a play on words; I find that using humor sort of opens up people to be more receptive to what could otherwise be a complicated topic, so I like having something playful in my work. The water damage is a way to physically represent damage done to homes, such as foreclosure. Water damage is a really easy technique when I’m working off of photographs.
You see people putting out flyers for a lost cat or something, and if they have inkjet print it will bleed over time… that’s the thing I was thinking about when I made this video. When I first attempted to make the video, my inkjet printer was too good so I couldn’t get the ink to run. I had to get a cheap inkjet printer to achieve my idea.
Martha: How interesting! I noticed in your video that the houses seemed alike in some ways, so I wanted to ask why did you choose these specific houses for this video. Do they have something in common, and how does that contribute to the greater meaning of the work as a whole?
Ms. Dahl: I’ve been working with the house as a sort of metaphors for the past 15 years, and these particular houses were part of the first incarnation of this particular installation in Memphis, in a multivalued exhibition. I chose houses in Memphis that were listed online under $20,000, which would indicate foreclosure homes. I wanted to select houses that were somehow neglected or not given their due. I felt a sort of empathy for these “lower level” houses.
Martha: Yeah, it’s interesting because when I was looking at your website online, I saw that each house comes with its own story of the fictional families living there. It made me think of my own story when I moved to different homes throughout my life, we used to rent out a basement, then a townhouse and a bigger house… and each house has its own story with its own family, depending on whatever time and memories the people living in it experienced. What effect do you want these stories to have on the audience?
Ms. Dahl: I think it’s a lot of what you just said. Houses are very personal places where we house our memories and our daily lives, so I wanted to convey that personal aspect to these homes. The homes in the video experienced foreclosure and neglect, and people are looking at listings for them as if they were commodities. I wanted to reinsert a personal nature into those homes. The accompanying text you mentioned are concise stories, like the ones you might find in a home listing. Only, in the listing it would typically say “four bedrooms, two baths blah blah blah.” I instead wanted to insert personal information. Each little essay is perhaps what you are thinking about when moving, and your home is being cleaned out. And you look around, and maybe a memory bubbles up… that type of story. Nothing grandiose, just something intimate.
Martha: At Davidson, the video will be presented without the stories. Do you think it will have the same effect on the audience?
Ms. Dahl: I don’t think it will have the same effect, but I am totally fine with just showing the video. I’ve shown it on its own before. I think pairing it with a larger installation gives it a bit more context, but the video is also a stand-alone piece. In fact, I think the impact is a little bit more, background noise making it mesmerizing. Within the first figures, you quickly understand what will happen without a narrative or anything. I find that waiting for the full five minutes to understand what is going on, people watch the whole thing and maybe even watch it again because it becomes this piece that almost allows you to daydream as you watch these houses undergo this process of melting. We bring so much to the house, personal stories as you’ve said, and somewhat we associate with what happens in our homes. I think it’s an easy entree into daydreaming to what you’re thinking about with your own home.
Martha: When I was watching the video for the first time I was intrigued because I didn’t know what was happening. So I rewatched it again and realized these homes remind me of the homes I’ve lived in or seen before. I know that your work is based on the housing bubble and crisis, but most current Davidson students were probably too young to remember what it was actually like to live through it. Do you think they will fully understand the meaning behind the work if they have not experienced losing a home or having a home undergo foreclosure?
Ms. Dahl: The economic impact of home ownership is one element of the video, but it is also about how we bring so many other associations to the house. Whether it is personal, economic, or even environmental… We consider home as the metaphor for anywhere we live. I don’t think you have to live through a housing bubble or undergo losing your own home to relate to what’s going on. I encourage students to consider the larger picture. Especially now, homes are becoming even more relevant and personal because everyone is working from home [during the pandemic]. The home is morphing into something new. More young adults are living at home than before, so there is a multigenerational aspect, too. The idea of a housing bubble isn’t the only metaphor being used here, I think there are other ways to relate to the artwork.