As If Sand Were Stone... (2019)

• 85%
• 2019
• Ben Mendelsohn

As If Sand Were Stone… is a 35 minute essay documentary examining the making and remaking of urban waterfronts in New York City. Narrated by landscape architect Gena Wirth, the film analyzes processes of dredging and sand filling as a key infrastructural process in the production of urban space. The film combines observational footage of New York's massive harbor deepening project with a series of self-reflexive research spirals that take place within the director's imagined computer desktop. As a result, the project not only explores the making of urban coastal landscapes, but also how these sedimentary landscapes are entangled with digitally mediated spaces of discourse and image.