Painting by Darinka Blagaj
Dear Community,
By its very essence, The Waterlily Project is what these times are about, despite and perhaps even because of the murky waters a beautiful flower arises. This project has been a microcosm of the macrocosm, a living example of what we can create when we work together regardless of belief systems, backgrounds, and location.
🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷
Life is messy, short, at times gut-wrenching, it is also surprising, heartwarming and even a little magic in the simplest of ways - e.g. a luscious flower out of muddy waters. This project was created as an offering. Each contributor gifted between a few hours to an entire two years to bring these films to life—all without expecting anything in return other than respect for their humanity.
🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷
In March 2020, due to the pandemic, we moved our screening event online, so that folks around the globe could watch the films from the comfort of their own home. The film collection is a mixture of social commentary, personal experience, inspiration and honest articulation of some of the grittiest times in my life personally (with themes many can relate to.) It does not aim nor claim to have answers or the “right” perspectives or ideas about those themes, but it speaks honestly and sensitively at other times with fervour.
🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷
I send you all my love, respect, and encouragement to keep taking things one day at a time, be kind to yourself, and know that you are essential.
🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷
Kindly, from my heart to yours,
Waterlily x 🌷
By its very essence, The Waterlily Project is what these times are about, despite and perhaps even because of the murky waters a beautiful flower arises. This project has been a microcosm of the macrocosm, a living example of what we can create when we work together regardless of belief systems, backgrounds, and location.
🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷
Life is messy, short, at times gut-wrenching, it is also surprising, heartwarming and even a little magic in the simplest of ways - e.g. a luscious flower out of muddy waters. This project was created as an offering. Each contributor gifted between a few hours to an entire two years to bring these films to life—all without expecting anything in return other than respect for their humanity.
🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷
In March 2020, due to the pandemic, we moved our screening event online, so that folks around the globe could watch the films from the comfort of their own home. The film collection is a mixture of social commentary, personal experience, inspiration and honest articulation of some of the grittiest times in my life personally (with themes many can relate to.) It does not aim nor claim to have answers or the “right” perspectives or ideas about those themes, but it speaks honestly and sensitively at other times with fervour.
🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷
I send you all my love, respect, and encouragement to keep taking things one day at a time, be kind to yourself, and know that you are essential.
🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷✨🌷
Kindly, from my heart to yours,
Waterlily x 🌷
BACKGROUND TO THE PROJECT
The Waterlily Projects' first collection of 20 short music films is a mixture of cathartic musings inspired by life challenges Waterlily & her closest friends have overcome. Each piece of art was a collaborative effort created with the support of filmmakers, producers, musicians, rappers, singers, dancers, videographers, actors, athletes, and choreographers whom they admire and respect. The contributions have come from artists living in Canada, the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, Sicily, the United States, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates.
The journey to building the collection took nearly two years. It was made possible by the trust, dedication, and generosity of each contributor, including a gracious benefactor who donated the rental costs of the Abbeydale Picture House, where the premiere was set to take place on Saturday, April 18th, 2020, before the globally enforced lockdown moved the screening online. Strangely serendipitous, it meant that our global village could now share in the work. For all of this, Waterlily is tremendously grateful!
"For me, based on my experience of Hip-Hop through the world and element of dance, I feel that "Hip-Hop" is synonymous with "community." This quality of togetherness is essential at this time in human history.
So, from that understanding, the essence of Hip-hop inspires every aspect of the collection. Even if musically, it's only sometimes obvious, as so many genres have influenced me. So the 20 tracks contain a blend of singing, rapping, and spoken word to a wide variety of soundscapes."
Waterlily's background as a professional street dancer influenced their passion for the community feeling they experienced through the music and movements of Hip-Hop dance. For this reason, Waterlily wishes to express her humble reverence and appreciation of the founders of the five elements of Hip-Hop (especially the female-bodied contributors). "Thank you for giving birth to an evolving art form that continues to feed and fuel the souls of so many of us around the globe. Through any emotional weather, it's a vibe that quenches thirst." At the premiere screening, there were meant to be live interludes dedicated to four of the elements of Hip-Hop (DJing, Mcing, Breakin' & Graffiti), including a talk by U.K. Hip-Hop historian Zulu King Monk representing the fifth element of Knowledge.
In December 2021, a live screening event occurred in T'Karonto/Toronto, Turtle Island/Canada. Waterlily performed a live aerial hoop piece to a new Hip Hop track created with collaborator Sterzy, and an improvised piece was offered by Gurpreet Chana, aka The Tabla Guy and Waterlily. 100% of the proceeds of the live event were donated to a local charity. (Click on the blue above to view performance footage from the live screening.)
When this project was created, Waterlily knew they were a non-binary female but was not yet comfortable sharing it with the broader public, hence lyrics like "I am woman" and "I hope one day I'll be a woman who can truly see." Having returned to Canada, Waterlily's preferred pronouns are "they/them". This feels an appropriate better fit and does not deter their passion for the feminist movement.
In this collection, though they strive to speak on each topic honestly without inhibition, Waterlily openly acknowledges that these considerations tell stories from very specific, often one-sided, and potentially polarising stances. They are not intended to create distance; they function to honor the genuine impact that fell heavily on the hearts of the authors/survivors. Waterlily feels it relevant to mention that it would be just as pertinent to write on the same topics, telling not only different tales but from opposing viewpoints because nothing about these themes is simple or straightforward. Nuance creates texture, and our filters, judgments, and personal experiences influence our perspectives. Communicating about them openly with an audience of deeply compassionate listeners creates room for common ground, clarification, and, sometimes, reconciliation.
From attempted suicide to overcoming sexual assault, a cry to care about climate change to the impacts of alcoholism and domestic violence in a family with small children, learning to set healthy boundaries, to experiencing the fundamental longing for another to bear witness to our grief - many of the lyrics are emotive and potentially challenging to take in. Still, the music/visuals carry undercurrents + dreams of hope, vulnerability, forgiveness, and love.
The journey to building the collection took nearly two years. It was made possible by the trust, dedication, and generosity of each contributor, including a gracious benefactor who donated the rental costs of the Abbeydale Picture House, where the premiere was set to take place on Saturday, April 18th, 2020, before the globally enforced lockdown moved the screening online. Strangely serendipitous, it meant that our global village could now share in the work. For all of this, Waterlily is tremendously grateful!
"For me, based on my experience of Hip-Hop through the world and element of dance, I feel that "Hip-Hop" is synonymous with "community." This quality of togetherness is essential at this time in human history.
So, from that understanding, the essence of Hip-hop inspires every aspect of the collection. Even if musically, it's only sometimes obvious, as so many genres have influenced me. So the 20 tracks contain a blend of singing, rapping, and spoken word to a wide variety of soundscapes."
Waterlily's background as a professional street dancer influenced their passion for the community feeling they experienced through the music and movements of Hip-Hop dance. For this reason, Waterlily wishes to express her humble reverence and appreciation of the founders of the five elements of Hip-Hop (especially the female-bodied contributors). "Thank you for giving birth to an evolving art form that continues to feed and fuel the souls of so many of us around the globe. Through any emotional weather, it's a vibe that quenches thirst." At the premiere screening, there were meant to be live interludes dedicated to four of the elements of Hip-Hop (DJing, Mcing, Breakin' & Graffiti), including a talk by U.K. Hip-Hop historian Zulu King Monk representing the fifth element of Knowledge.
In December 2021, a live screening event occurred in T'Karonto/Toronto, Turtle Island/Canada. Waterlily performed a live aerial hoop piece to a new Hip Hop track created with collaborator Sterzy, and an improvised piece was offered by Gurpreet Chana, aka The Tabla Guy and Waterlily. 100% of the proceeds of the live event were donated to a local charity. (Click on the blue above to view performance footage from the live screening.)
When this project was created, Waterlily knew they were a non-binary female but was not yet comfortable sharing it with the broader public, hence lyrics like "I am woman" and "I hope one day I'll be a woman who can truly see." Having returned to Canada, Waterlily's preferred pronouns are "they/them". This feels an appropriate better fit and does not deter their passion for the feminist movement.
In this collection, though they strive to speak on each topic honestly without inhibition, Waterlily openly acknowledges that these considerations tell stories from very specific, often one-sided, and potentially polarising stances. They are not intended to create distance; they function to honor the genuine impact that fell heavily on the hearts of the authors/survivors. Waterlily feels it relevant to mention that it would be just as pertinent to write on the same topics, telling not only different tales but from opposing viewpoints because nothing about these themes is simple or straightforward. Nuance creates texture, and our filters, judgments, and personal experiences influence our perspectives. Communicating about them openly with an audience of deeply compassionate listeners creates room for common ground, clarification, and, sometimes, reconciliation.
From attempted suicide to overcoming sexual assault, a cry to care about climate change to the impacts of alcoholism and domestic violence in a family with small children, learning to set healthy boundaries, to experiencing the fundamental longing for another to bear witness to our grief - many of the lyrics are emotive and potentially challenging to take in. Still, the music/visuals carry undercurrents + dreams of hope, vulnerability, forgiveness, and love.
Photography by Addy Duran
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The Waterlily Project aspires to reflect on human experiences which may initially look or feel like mud but with a little care and attention evolve into heartfelt, endearing, raw and gritty pieces of authentic artistry. WATERLILY MUSIC © COPYRIGHT 2023. TERMS & CONDITIONS - COOKIES POLICY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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