Handle with care – on the value of water
2022
Den Haag
Handle with care is a research project focussing on daily water use and consumption:
Water is an element constantly present in our lives. It seems to be everywhere, visible as lakes, rivers, the ocean, rain falling from the sky. At the same time, it is an element which value is not tangible at all in our current society, even though it is the one keeping us alive. A shift in value seems deeply necessary, because water is getting scarce. While the earth ́s surface is covered by oceans making up 71%1 only 3,5% of the earths water is sweet2 and while our population is still growing, fresh water ressources shrink alarmingly3. Natural water storages such as glaciers melt, ground water levels sink, time and place of rainy seasons change, whole landscapes fall dry4. Looking at the Netherlands resources in particular, it is hard to believe that a country pimarily built on water might have problems regarding fresh water distribution. However, due to constant pumping, rising sea levels and low water levels in rivers, an unstoppable process of salination has begun. Additionaly, the evergrowing agricultural sector caused ground water levels to sink constantly5. Scarcity of fresh water is the result.
In western Europe, we still take water for granted. Most of our interaction with the element is subconscious; water is not actively valued in out society. We turn on a tap with minimal effort,
water appears and disappears within seconds. Out of nowhere,
into nowhere. All water treatment processes are invisible, kept underground or outside the city. „Trespassing prohibited“. We ignore the long way water needs to travel to exit our tap, the different forms it can take when changing from steam to liquid to ice.
How is it possible that the most important resource keeping us alive is currently treated as if it didn‘t have any value? How could this lack of appreciation be changed and conscious interaction provoked?
Can we bring intimacy and physical connection back into our future relationship with water? How can this act of care be reflected spatially? And if water is taking care of us and our survival, shouldn‘t we start to take care of the water as well?
With an autoethnographic approach, I mapped my water use precicely for a week. In a next step, I built my own well in my garden, only using water I manually transport to where I need it. Do I use less? How does my conscious interaction with the element affect my use?
Actively getting water to perform a task (Raumlabor) is connecting to the seperation of tap and sink from each other (Le Montavoies) and could be the starting point of a new way of transporting water. Cutting the chain creates consequences for carelessness. Meanwhile, the action
of getting water creates a new rythm, the ritual of walking together, possibly in certain times of the day. Instead of letting water travel invisible, we can actively participate bridging the distance between tap and sink, spring and house, together. This creates a new kind of intimacy, fetching the source of caring for our bodies (inside and outside) together.
The result is a transparent tube that can be filled with up to 25l of water – the amount I used within a day when fetching water manually. It can be worn in countless different ways.
Actively disrupting the water cycle optimized for centuries could be a radical, yet soft approach in tackeling the value of water, in this case a speculative research on sustainable and concious water usage.