Swimming a long way together
Vanessa Daws
‘I had a natural desire to be in the open, and found the joy of swimming in the fresh air intense’
Mercedes Gleitze*
Swimming a Long Way Together draws inspiration from pioneering swimmer Mercedes Gleitze as part of its wider celebration of swimming and swimming communities.
Mercedes in the North Channel on 26 July 1928 during her second attempt to cross from Donaghadee, N.I. to Portpatrick in Scotland. (Northern Whig & Belfast Post/British Library/Gleitze Archive.)
As a durational art project, Swimming a Long Way Together will unfold over the coming years across a series of large-scale live events and exhibitions in Ireland, Northern Ireland, England and France.
These expansive moments represent the contemporary experience of open water swimming through the legacy of Mercedes Gleitze, a pioneer swimmer from the 20th century.
Mercedes Gleitze undertook many challenging and pioneering swims in the 1920s and ‘30s, across Ireland, Britain and beyond. She was the first British woman to swim the English Channel, the first person to swim the Strait of Gibraltar, and she also completed record-breaking endurance swims of up to 47 hours in public swimming pools. From humble origins Mercedes became celebrated for her swimming achievements, huge audiences would come to cheer her on or to greet her whenever she emerged from the water. Music played a central role, as an accompaniment and support, often helping to create a festive atmosphere on the pool deck and raise her spirits as she swam vast stretches of open water.
Swimming a Long Way together has emerged out of the artistic practice of Vanessa Daws, a visual artist and long distance swimmer living in Dublin, and her own pioneering swims, which include the 22km length of Lough Mask in Co Galway. It was during Vanessa’s preparations to attempt to swim the English Channel that she first came across the fascinating history of Mercedes. Vanessa’s art practice works at the intersection of art, swimming and place. Swimming, journey, encounter, conversation and Vanessa’s first hand swimming experiences are the starting points for her projects. Vanessa has been developing a multi-layered way of working with different communities in different disciplines, all connected through particular bodies of water.
*Doloranda Pember (2019), In the Wake of Mercedes Gleitze, The History Press, p.40.
Swimming a Long Way Together was launched on 20th August 2021 with a swim spectacle performance in the River Liffey in Dublin.
Launch of Swimming a Long Way Together on the river Liffey, August 2021
At Home in the Water, Fabrica Brighton, installation view, 2022, photo by Tom Thistlethwaite
For the launch, a group of swimmers towing large, illuminated sculptures behind them swam up the River Liffey and performed with synchronised swimmer Aoife Drumm. The swimmers were escorted by the Old Liffey Ferry, on board were ’Landless’ a four piece harmony group who sang “As easy stop the sea” a song that Ruth Clinton has written for the project. The launch event was intended as a surprise for those people passing through the city centre that evening, a chance for them to come across something magical and unexpected.
The following day was the Swimposium, which took people on a journey across Dublin Bay with talks, swimming, food and performance along the way.
On October 1st and 2nd 2021, Midleton College in Cork hosted Swimming a Long Way Together’s 30 hour Endurance Swim and Performance, a re-imagining of Mercedes Gleitze’s own 30 hour endurance swim at the Eglinton Baths, Cork in 1930.
In 2022, Swimming a Long Way Together travelled to Donaghadee in April, staging a multi-sited event to commemorate Mercedes Gleitze’s eight attempts to swim across the North Channel and to celebrate the history of the town as the centre of North Channel swimming.
At Blackrock, Galway on 11th June 2022, Vanessa created a ‘Swim Procession’, with costumes, music, poetry, performance and swimming to mark the Demonstration Swim, which Mercedes gave at the same location, following her successful attempt to swim across from the Aran Islands.
In autumn 2022, the project travelled to England for ‘At Home in the Water’ an exhibition at Fabrica, Brighton, the city in which Mercedes Gleitze was born and learned to swim. At the centre of the exhibition was a new film created by Vanessa, which focuses on the inward and outward journey of the long distance open water swimmer, drawing together fragments of interviews with Channel swimmers Vanessa has conducted throughout the project. This was presented alongside archival footage of Mercedes Gleitze and the history of swimming in Brighton, and interviews with local swimmers.
On 29th July 2023 Vanessa created ‘The Swimmer’s Journey’ in Dover, to celebrate Mercedes record breaking Channel swim and the spectacle that accompanied her swimming feats. A day-long programme, the event included creative workshops, a community procession, performances and coincided with the launch of the ‘Channel Crossings’ exhibition at Dover Museum, existing work by Vanessa and a new piece created through public workshops and in partnership with Ceramic Art Dover.
Swimming a Long way Together is now working towards the final event in England - a 47-hour swim and performance at Sea Lanes pool in Brighton 13-15 October this year.
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Photos by Brian Cregan; drone and film stills by Barry Lynch