
title. water dialogues
date. 2013
country. Switzerland
description. video and performance
dimensions. variable dimensions

Commissioned by curator Dimitrina Sevova for an exhibition at Kunsthof, the video 'Water Dialogues' proposes a personal and poetic reflection on the presence of water in Zurich – specially its drinking fountains – and the relationship between people and water in the town. While living in Zurich for 2 years, the artist became fascinated by how the water provoked moments of break, of pause, of intimacy, of leisure. In a world where the fear of water scarcity is constantly increasing, the commodification of water is a menace that prompts the artist to ask herself (and the viewer): can we take it for granted? In addition to the video, the artist presented the 'Water Tasting' performance, during which she offered samples of water she collected from various fountains around Kunsthof.


"A politics of location is always personal and political. This is why the meta-textuality of the video is globally and geographically constituted. The micro and local context are transmitted through invisible links to another continent, to South America, and specifically to the location of the artist’s home city of São Paulo, where water is always bought, drinking water is bottled, and water from the tap serves only for cleaning and laundry. The two main rivers that cross the city supplying it with their vitality are completely, desperately and probably irreversibly polluted."
Dimitrina Sevova, Water Diagrammatizing, excerptdd

"Can tasty water in its difference inspire a process of thinking and of becoming a metabolistic body of differences across the world, be it through the bodies and colonies of microorganisms which combine with the mineral content to give each water its distinctive taste? If the ecology of the mind is always molecular and local, the planetary water weaves it into molar issues with its closed system of constant circulation and its embodiment of interrelated machinic fluids, as a thousand water machines perpetually multiply in a constant vital mechanic process of becoming in the creative milieus of water’s myriad of ecobodily forms, of corporal fluidities with their physical and chemical specificities."
Dimitrina Sevova, Water Diagrammatizing, excerpt



camera and editing :: Kika Nicolela