In the history of the arts — and cinema in particular — water in all its forms is omnipresent. The relationship between water and moving images unfolds on multiple levels. Water, and the ways in which it can be perceived, offers a fitting analogy for conceptualization, and its aesthetic form becomes especially apparent when fluidity is revealed through motion picture.

Yet water is not merely a beautiful backdrop, but one of the fundamental elements — a meaningful stage upon which stories unfold. It can serve as a metaphor or symbol — of rebirth, infinity, or danger — but also as a stylistic device that allows past and present to blur together, like a stream of memory.

Water is so all-encompassing that it resists a singular definition. In our new special series this May and June, BODIES OF WATER, we explore the many shapes water takes in film and in life — from the poetic to the everyday, from the sensory to the symbolic.

"A body of water or waterbody is any significant accumulation of water on the surface of Earth or another planet. The term most often refers to oceans, seas, and lakes, but it includes smaller pools of water such as ponds, wetlands, or more rarely, puddles."