The Water That Connects Us

October 31st - November 22nd, 2026 
Opening Reception: Saturday, October 31st, 7-10 pm

Participating artists:

Monte Vista Projects: Christine Atkinson, Kiyomi Fukui Nannery, Sara Hassan Khani, Judi Pettite, Daniel Tovar
SCOTTY (Berlin): Charlotte Bastian, Julia Krewani, Bettina Weiß, Juliane Zelwies
Uniōn (Mexico City): José Castañeda Lepov

Monte Vista Projects is pleased to present, The Water That Connects Us, part of B-LA-M. 

The ocean is a symbolic place: in opposition to the security and stability of land, it represents instability, wildness, formlessness, and freedom.

The ten artists in The Water That Connects Us consider the ocean as a space that both metaphorically and literally resists the fixity of borders and systems, while also revealing how deeply we desire these structures of control. The works find oceanic currents within the body, the drifting form of a plastic bag, the migration of Arctic terns, and the movement of nomadic peoples. It is a living space that connects distant bodies, indifferent to the political and economic structures that seem intent on controlling or even dividing us. In this light, maps, flags, nets, geometric forms, and communication networks appear as attempts to impose order on what is fluid and wild.

In Los Angeles—where the Pacific meets the highway, migration routes, digital infrastructures, and urban expansion— this exhibition asks whether freedom can exist without loss of control. If we are always trying to regulate the movement of water, bodies, people, information, and desire, do we really want to be free?