Swimming Sydney

Swimming Sydney is a tale of 52 swims in and around Sydney that take place over the course of a calendar year. From Palm Beach to Cronulla, Mount Druitt to Bondi, Chris Baker swims at iconic beaches, municipal pools, harbour enclosures, hidden rivers, tidal rock pools, bushland lakes and in a backyard pool. Taking his weekly plunges, he swims with the many tribes of Sydney: a septuagenarian aqua aerobics class; a six-month-old baby learning to swim; a Saturday morning LGBTQIA+ swim squad; asylum seekers finding refuge in a Western Sydney pool; a cancer survivor at Bondi Icebergs. Splashing, paddling, floating or doing serious laps, Baker muses on mental health, nudity, real estate, ancestors, climate, sexuality, class, cinema, spirituality, mortality and family. And how swimming can help us understand ourselves, our city and our island nation.