A “museum” without the usual scientific classification criteria and precious objects
A “museum” without the usual scientific classification criteria and precious objects, but which deals with something priceless and does seek the contribution of science. The safekeeping of samples of fresh water is a symbolic act, and an expression of justified environmental concerns. Even more important is the process and the communication involved in their collection and documentation between people and organizations from urban centers and outlying regions. While neither exactly artistic activism, nor a microtopian relational model, this work-in-progress by Keti Haliori concerns the source of life (water) and the prerequisite of change (human communication). Indeed, the desired worldwide interaction will not come about from the passive observation of “the suffering of others”, and only such an interaction can prevent apocalyptic scenarios such as the global shortage of water supplies. Art has for a long time moved beyond its typological formal boundaries, as it struggles to sensitize the public on issues of public concern. Thus the legitimacy of the sparse, unspectacular forms of presentation chosen by Keti Haliori, in her effort to combine symbolism, information and dialogue.
Manos Doukas
Art Historian
The material culture of the World Water Museum
The interactive works have their own material culture, conveying with their temporary or permanent collections deep symbolic meanings, even in cases that the visual references are not obvious.
The work World Water Museum, an installation with specific site its final destination at Hydra, started with the collection of ideas to eventuate in a collection of representative samples of drinking water. During the ideas collection, the tangible materials of the work set out through the stories of landscapes, the sounds and the energies of the people and their actions of samples collecting. As artworks, each separate action conveys associations and concerns related to the foretold drinking water shortage. Despite this the collection process and the presentation of the idea should convey optimistic messages. The work should make us feel faith and appreciation to the material culture which communicate with our presence on the planet and promote the social, political and geophysical values encompassing the water. This first phase of the collection presents the first material culture of the work and its principles, very close to Ilissos, the river of Athens, being dry in its present condition.
The relation of material culture in works having as concepts the lack and destitution is useful. It strengthens the subject of the artwork, the water in this case but also the value of a number of additional media. Like the sounds of the sites of collecting the samples, the images, the time references moreover the people, their qualities and their curricula build the work and deconstruct our long or perhaps ever lasting carelessness and apathy to the resources and their routes.
The subjects and their meaning in artworks or the museum collections show the quality, the insight and perception also the aspirations of the creators and their caretakers. When they are nature related they show a kind of concern towards humanity, us and our future. The structured and volunteer care is a variety of the same concern. Events become media assisting us to think over the value of the materials offered by earth and behave with the respect that a museum collection deserves. Through this process every other chance, every new idea add new levels and layers of associations and meanings.
The material culture of water has endless conceptual layers. On each occasion, if the work World Water Museum could assimilate one reflection from each participant, the culture of the work will gain something that perhaps not even its creator imagined during the artwork conception. That the power embodied in a collective work, is surpassed by what the object might represent, get connected with the past and turn to be a deep personal and often very private issue.
Aristi Costopoulou
Museum studies
