What the Sea Left Behind (2010)

Overview

An audio-visual portrait of the Gowanus Canal using binaural contact microphones, a homemade hydrophone, and a last roll of Super-8mm Kodachrome. Since its creation in 1867, the canal’s murky bottom has absorbed over a century of industrial pollutants and raw sewage. Yet the canal retains a unique rustic beauty due to this very toxicity. The film asks us to open our eyes and ears to meet a hidden world submerged within this forgotten and neglected estuary.