Charlotte Dumas

Shio 潮 is part of a project consisting of three short films in which the location, the small Japanese island Yonaguni where wild horses roam, plays a prominent role. Since 2015 Dumas has studied this island and the critically-endangered breed of native horses. Yonaguni’s slender little horses once fulfilled a vital role in the island’s community, as general workhorses but also with a religious function. Industrialization and the importation of larger Western breeds brought an end to their practical usefulness, however, and this led to a drastic decline in their numbers. 
In Shio these horses and a ten-year-old Japanese girl seem to be waiting for something or someone. In the second and third film a young girl and a slightly older one arrive separately on this remote island.