Deepwater Horizon: Exhalation blends weathered archival footage portraying a community of female free-divers from ancient Japan with sonar imagery documenting the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Interspersed was a CGI seascape of thunderous waves. Sonar audio of the spill danced around deep inhalations, creating counterpoints of a claustrophobic sonic tapestry and a transfixing marine meditation.

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“The Ama footage used was made by an American film maker in the 1960s and Ujita acknowledges there is an exotic gaze trained on the divers. She argues that she uses the body “not as something seductive, but just as a body”. Ujita points out that the footage reveals a lust through the ‘peeping’ nature of the camera and she then uses this gaze to suggest a parallel with oil exploration, where there is a lust to exploit a resource.” — a-n Degree Show Guide 2022 interview and feature by Laura Davidson https://www.a-n.co.uk/degree-shows/feature/class-of-2021-asako-ujita/

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Written, Edited and Sound designed by Asako Ujita

​3D animation by Tigris Li