Refshaleøen, Copenhagen, Denmark. January.
Black waves lapped up against ageing concrete, its taught skin cold and cracked with winter. Inside the fire was burning a slow and aching heat onto the wooden walls. Sending a laugh into the icy air was a swimmer, her hands clutching at the ladder to pull her from the mouth of sloshing water and onto dry land.
There’s something akin to birth here, amongst the people who move from the warm womb of inside into the water. A birth that catches and tears at the unexpecting players until they form a web of connection. A familiarity of hands to break the inky surface.
She gasps as her head breaks the surface. Does she swim?
I want to weave my way into the fabric that binds them. I sat there, the grey wood whispering cold into my bones and watched. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of the fire as it happily dances on the docks. The greenhouse at the waters edge looks
bruised as it reflects the blue and orange hues of the island. There’s something about the crack of chatter and joyous shouts that swings between the swimmers. It is as if they are singing a folksong to their people. And sometimes, I sing along too.
‘Swimmers on the Island’ is a photographic project exploring what it means to swim during the winter off the docks of Refshaleøen, Copenhagen.
