JULIA ZURILLA

“Portrait of a Bather in Three Movements” (2026) is a three-channel video installation in which contemporary and archival images enter into a suspended dialogue across time. At the center, a bird’s-eye view of the open sea in the present acts as a magnetic field — a point of attraction and resistance that organizes the space. On either side, two black-and-white images from the 1950s depict bathers swimming: one alone, the other accompanied by a partner. These fragments of a suspended past drift in relation to the central image, approaching, receding, and destabilizing one another.

The work unfolds through subtle tensions between proximity and distance, repetition and difference, memory and invention. Echoing the structure of the accompanying musical program — where connections emerge across time, from Handel to Britten to Glass — the images establish resonances between eras and perceptual states. Through repetition, slight variation, and rhythm, what initially appears stable gradually becomes uncertain.

Originally presented at The Betsy Hotel in collaboration with IlluminArts, the project also included a special adaptation for The Betsy Orb, where the work expanded beyond the gallery space into the public sphere as a large-scale architectural projection facing Ocean Drive.

Rather than presenting a fixed narrative, the installation creates a shifting visual field in which the images, and the viewer, remain in a continuous state of adjustment.

Technical Setup and Production: Rafael Núñez