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WATER
By
Brigid Hughes and Mary Mattingly
You
mention a paranoia about water. When did you first really start researching
water issues?
I really started researching water issues when it started to become privatized.
I was reading articles about Bechtel and Suez, and realizing that bottled
water and jugs of water were becoming essential to our society, and this
really just literally scared me.
Was
the Netherlands your first research trip?
I was actually in New Orleans and went to see the levee walls not long
after PBS ran a report by Daniel Zwirdling detailing the city’s
precarious situation; with levees built of soil, concrete, and steel.
One thing I learned there, and that Zwirdling talked about in his report,
was that the miles of wetlands between the ocean and New Orleans naturally
shielded the city. Now, with the levees in place, the wetlands have begun
to break apart, and the water blockage is causing an environmental chain
reaction, slowly erasing the wetlands.
When did your focus shift from the technology and architecture that keeps
water out to your inventions?
I think it was a combination of a feeling of impending doom; around the
time that the citizens in the city of Cochabamba, Bolivia, revolted after
not being able to afford the price of water after it had been privatized,
and coupling this with moving to New York; where one can have anything
s/he wants if one can buy it. In this case, technology and consumerism
both provide quick fixes for a giant trend of not taking care of nature,
and of no longer knowing how to. We are all used to paying $4.00 for a
bag of spinach, but growing a garden is incredibly simple and will allow
us to eat healthy food at almost no cost. So I think part of it is a return
to simplicity. It is very easy to make a water purifier. My urge to make
useful, easy to use, and easy to recreate inventions comes from the need
I feel to relearn people on how to live with nature, because we will need
to. Some of what I try to express in my photos is the danger that comes
with forgetting how to make things. We become dependent on having the
option to buy, and that gives the seller a lot of power over us.
Why?
What do you think of those technological feats now? Now, Are you still
impressed with them? Do they seem like foolish attempts on man's part
to control nature?
I think the technological feats of levee systems that are being designed
are hugely impressive; however, these levees are nothing compared to nature,
and nothing compared to the economic system put in place that inevitably
aggravates the situation of pollution, and the resulted increased storms
and rising waters. It is apparent that not every place can afford a giant
protective wall that can close in case of a storm; however, places still
use sandbags, and that can work too for the short term. Realistically,
though, living with water is unavoidable.
When did you start working on the wearable home and the water
mall?
I began working on wearable homes in 2001, as a result of the year 2000,
during which I moved five times. I was thinking, how fitting! I am acting
as a model for future nomads, as now we are beginning the culmination;
to a point where everything is flexible, because it needs to be, because
living is about survival, space is a luxury, products all want to be smaller,
houses all want to be prefab, and waterfront property shows signs of a
market downturn. A wearable home should not only be equipped for the city-nomad,
but for the future nomad who will need to travel through desert areas
and waterlogged spaces. And then where will the malls be? How will our
model of economic utopia come to fruition? So, the answer was the Watermall.
Do you think you could give me a quick recap of how your interest
in (and paranoia about) water developed?
I grew up in a flood-prone area and would regularly worry about, clean
up after, and protect against floods. Water was a controversial topic
in the town with pesticides such as DDT from the surrounding farms, well
water, and the new option of buying town water as a solution to the pesticides
found in the water table. I really started researching issues surrounding
water when its privatization started to become more prevalent. I was reading
articles about riots in Cochabamba, because the city’s residents
were not able to afford the price of the newly privatized clean water.
That same year, the news described cataclysmic, devastating floods from
the UK to Cambodia, from Madagascar to Mozambique. There was immense flood
damage that year. At the same time, in the United States, bottled water
and jugs of water were becoming an essential commodity in our society.
All of that amazed, astonished, and finally frightened me. It continues
to scare me that, as an overall trend, people are depending on buying
and forgetting how to make things, or depending on a large levee and relying
on an inadequate evacuation system. In this case, technology and consumerism
both provide quick fixes for a global trend of not taking care of nature,
and of no longer knowing how to.
Next >
Go to Homemade Water
Purification System
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