Swim: The Water in Between by Francine Fleischer

Issue 64

This series was photographed in a magical yet mysterious swimming hole that had been used by an ancient civilization for human sacrifice.  Today it is used by swimmers for recreational swim. I’ve been returning to this spot to photograph the ever-changing cast of characters in this consistent pool.

The dark waters are deep below the earth’s surface and lit from above by a hole in the ground revealing sky and sunlight. When I look down on the swimmers in these inky waters, it is a bit like looking down the rabbit hole into another world. Sometimes it is an allegorical scene illustrating my subterranean dreams, other times I am a merely a voyeur, capturing the body politics and random scenarios, the contradictions of light and dark, levity and gravity, reality and revery, tribulations and joy and of course sinking and swimming. 

Each time I return here, I am drawn in by these contradictions, the human conversations and the random choreography below. 

Francine Fleischer lives and works in New York City.
To view more of Francine's work, please visit her website.