The Weight of Stillness

There is a particular kind of silence that arrives when the wind dies. It is not an absence of sound, but a presence of something heavier. In the north, we wait for the water to turn to glass, to become a mirror that refuses to show us ourselves. We look down and see only the sky, inverted and unreachable. It is a trick of the light, perhaps, or a reminder that what we stand upon is as fragile as what we breathe. To hold a reflection is to accept that the world is doubled, that every solid thing has a ghost waiting beneath the surface. We walk along the edge, careful not to break the tension. We are always standing between two skies, wondering which one is the true one, and why we feel the need to choose at all.

Ahmed Sabbir has captured this quiet duality in his work titled Line of Trees. It is a place where the earth and the air have finally agreed to be still. Does the water hold the trees, or do the trees hold the water?