Water is life. It is an organism: complex and dynamic in structure.
Water has consciousness and hold memories.
Picture from Göteborgsposten Artikel 2016, Svenska se Artikel GP
I work with water’s identity, its relationship to all life on the planet, our own bodies, to our brain and our connection to the water in the ocean, and the stories that it brings about from people, all of which reflect community, time and place. Water can empower people, and so by giving people opportunities to collect water by their own choice, share their stories, and be part of the exhibition, water becomes the force of positive change.
The visualised water and naturally occurring biochemical colour pigment processes that come about from such collaboration, yield indications of geographical locations and environmental health. Living space-related processes, that are shown by these associations of water, create a living change of colour, which proves a metamorphosis that transforms from one form to another, each and all that offers hope over time. The entire installation is a place-related natural colour cultural process, by which show both the inside and outside of a changeable life, the sensitiveness of our ecosystem.
In containers, with plant material added, the entire exhibition changes by slow dynamic processes that are dependent on the water’s quality, and the subtleness of human interaction, sound and light. The exhibition becomes a laboratory, which breathes, grows, changes and communicates by and through water, light and the bacterial colour processes elemental deep connection with human perception. Life, wisdom and knowledge, health, nature and aesthetics become subject to our senses, whence sensuality becomes the faculty that grasps the complexity of water, materiality and spirituality in our perceived world. The display is an artistic work, which also includes discussions on water as life and living, ethics, and human behaviours, as well as reasoning upon the supposition of water as having its own identity. I have collaborated with researchers, scientists, and municipalities. The effort was and is to build bridges between different disciplines, where art and science can create momentum that can transpire to new ecological imaginary worlds that push as motions to new social-ecological transformations.
“The work is process-based with the flow, temporary installations, water and plants and colour, development of site-specific matter that grows transforming these physical moments and playing with visions through transparency and translucency to create complex space shifting over time – where time and space are interventions of the contemporary. The environmental physics of life and all energy that is suspended and vibrating together in an enormous system. To create colour and change – a resonance of nature’s complexity, sensitivity to nature’s rhythms, undulations and mutations”.
My engagement for the water is nothing new. I come from Borås from the beginning and that’s where the river VISKAN flows, which is one of Sweden’s most polluted rivers due to the textile industry. One of the first bigger water projects I had was with the River Viskan, in a collaboration project with Navet Science Center and Textile Museum Borås in 2013 and 2014 The project was between Textile art and Science and learning processes. Water is one of the most importent element in natural dye. I did also a water project during my AIR at Steneby Gothenburg University 2012, and in Linne Garden Uppsala 2011.
When Whose Water are you? (what water body are you)? was shown in New Zealand, one of the chiefs of a Maori tribes, came to bless the water and the exhibition. See Tauranga Art Gallery NZ
Film NZ Whose Water are You, Tauranga Art Gallery, the film is made in collaboration with students. RNZ Radio NZ
Links to other Work with Whose Water are You or similar in Swedish? Tomelilla Konsthall Vernissage Tomelilla
Skövde Konsthall Skövde Konsthall samtal
Other links in Swedish
Vetlanda museum smålands Dagblad
