PAUSING SEA

Bahrain​

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As the warm air settles thick with salt, after the morning prayer call gently croons, before the wailing cars and the hum of constant construction resume, the sea encircling the island of Bahrain sits so quietly still you could mistake it for a painted backdrop. Dissolving silently into the aquamarine sky, you forget that it is in fact adrift, unmoored, shifting only ever in one direction: away.

The sea is moving and with it move its people in two directions. They spill outwards in search of it, venturing farther with every chapter of land reclamation, and when access does not allow, they turn sideways, leaning onto each other’s shared memory. They say islands are places of isolation, but perhaps the islander is never alone. Perhaps it is on this uncertain edge of sand and sea that togetherness is at its steadiest, looking out into the wandering sea.

The images presented capture the sea in a moment of pausing, waiting for its new collective to come forward, a collective that yearns for it to remain.

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Text Noora Alhashimi

Photographs Corinna Del Bianco

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Published in the June issue of the photography web magazine Clic-hé