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| Photo: Emily Edwards |
"Flow" is a project which invites people to take time to think about water by asking them a simple question; "What
is your relationship with water?"
Participants are offered a piece of
original art in exchange for their thoughts on their relationship with water—an
act that may suggest a reciprocal relationship between the artist and the viewer,
but also between humans and water.
Participants will leave the
gallery with a tea-stained Japanese paper bearing a question or response from
another person, which I re-typed from the previous installation. Each sheet also bears some marks in mineral
pigment. I see this exchange as an invitation to plunge deeper into the
question as I have been doing, or as a reminder for a deeper appreciation for
water.
Each time I install this project, new
responses will be added, and participants will take what they want to have as a
reminder and leave their thoughts for others to ponder. People's thoughts on
water will be circulated and passed onto other people. Sheets for participants
to choose to “swap” and take home bear splashes of blue, but the sheets they
use to type their responses do not. Theoretically, if all the original sheets
were to be replaced by new responses, the display will not bear any mineral
pigment—blue, and it would look "dry" only to bear stories from
people about their relationships with water.
For the Open Studio at the Studios at MASS MoCA, I installed this project, and asked viewers to type their thoughts on water. Making a little splash or ripple effect with each exchange, I feel that together we can make a bigger wave. It's a very small humble act by each of us, but it's a start.
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| Photo: Emily Edwards |
