In this video, originally commissioned by the Sydney Opera House, Hepi uses the migratory route of the Anguilla Reinhardtii (the longfin eel), as an allegory for the performance of pursuit and return. Hepi personifies the Anguilla’s journey home through the Sydney Opera House and into the waters that surround it in a dynamic chase scene, as the eels travels over two-thousand kilometres from New Caledonia to the freshwaters of the Royal Botanic Gardens. Presented in two opposite screens are two interrelated images that speak and return to one another with edited loops and glitches. For centuries eels have held peoples’ imagination. The way in which they mate and reproduce has long been considered a mystery. Many are the theories and myths on how they come into being. The ancient Egyptians, for instance, believed they were a gift of the Nile that released them when warmed up by the sun. Aristotle instead claimed they emerged from a mix of rainwater and mud, while a Scottish tale from the 1860s reported they began their lives as beetles. Swedish journalist Patrik Svensson has discussed these stories in The Book of Eels (2020): eels were told to be born of sea-foam, created in spring when the sun rays touched the dew of lakeshores and riverbanks, or made out of hairs that had fallen into the water from horses’ tails. In her statement about the work the artist then explains: Return and transition hold a mythos around it as we grapple with our own endings, changes and chases. Seeing animals such as eels that show up in unexpected waters, yet still knowing how and when to migrate back, allows for dealing with the stories of my own migratory sensations, memories and loss. The interrogation and pursuit of the eel question is something that as an artist fascinates me. It makes me think of it as the ultimate metaphor for the “oceanic feeling” and the desire for a continued spirit of pursuit.

View this work as part of Agency x Composite First Nations Screening Program, running from 01 June - 08 July, 2022 at Composite.