Holly Wawn’s Predictable Violence

There’s something unsettling about predictability executed with violence. 

Holly Wawn’s surfing seems to exist in that particular space. Her lines are classical and decisive, but they’re eternally drawn with what’s become part of her brand: brute force. In a rapid fire word association game, many would spit out “Power” straight after hearing Holly’s first and last name. 

Friend and collaborator Toby Cregan spent five days pointing his lens at reeling, warm-water points, collecting footage of Wawn mostly on a William ‘Stretch’ Riedel 6’2 thruster, going in a single direction. The pairing with Julianna Hatfield’s Simplicity Is Beautiful doesn’t seem accidental, and gives it a hypnotic mantra-like quality. 

After walking away from an early career in competition, Holly has been building a reputation as a freesurfer, meaning she’s been free to obliterate moving walls of water while earning a paycheck for quite some years now. 

The footage is straightforward because the surfing is straightforward. Sometimes the most radical act is refusing to complicate what’s already working.