Watch Water Plastic Bag (1973) Official Trailer

Water Plastic Bag is one of a series of durational, risk-taking performances that Ramos made with fellow artists Lowell Darling and Joe Ray. An idyllic shot of beach and surf is the setting for this unnerving performance. Ramos and Darling are tied into body-sized plastic bags and then buried in the sand by shovel-wielding children. As passers-by stroll along the beach and curious dogs investigate, the two men struggle free of the sand and then roll and tumble, still sheathed in their plastic bags, into the crashing surf. Eventually they emerge from the waves and the bags and exit the scene.