Costanza Burstin

For the past 1000 years, on the remote South Korean island of Jeju, the sisterhood of Haenyeo divers have sustained themselves by hand-harvesting a variety of sea life. In a changing world where 98% of the divers are now over 50 years old, a mother and daughter attempt to restore their relationship while preserving their heritage.

Against the bleached sky of Rajasthan, we encounter the women of a small Muslim village as they engage in their work. Here, water binds their daily labour rituals: they collect and carry water in massive urns, they clean plates and clothes with it, water their animals, and even maintain their homes with it (we see them churn mud to smear across their floors). A record of the ongoing cycles of women’s labour (“we make food, we eat, we sleep, we wake up…”), their sense of humour and resilience, and the ways the community co-operate to deal with scarcity.