Located in an office trailer, the installation displayed stories with a global perspective on drinking-water use while the performance grew out of conversations with Seattle Public Utility staff.
Installation view: water stories. audience stories, trailer.
Water stories: one. two, three, four, five. six, seven, eight, nine.
Performance: video excerpt (8 minutes).
Audience drinking-water stories:
When I was a kid in Mexico City, the water would run for a 1/2 hour each day. You never knew when, so all the taps were left open. When it started to gush out, we ran around with buckets, pans, anything to hold the water as it would be all we had for the rest of the day.
In 1995 my husband and I took a faluka boat down the Nile river. The faluka is a large-masted sail vessel. Our captain Mahmud took us to his village where we anchored for the night. All the women/children were at the Nile gathering water in large metal containers, placing them on their heads. Just then a huge cruise ship passed us, and as it passed, it dumped bag after bag of trash into the Nile.