{"id":29121,"date":"2018-07-14T03:00:19","date_gmt":"2018-07-14T07:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/?p=29121"},"modified":"2025-06-28T13:30:45","modified_gmt":"2025-06-28T17:30:45","slug":"artists-conversation-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/2018\/07\/14\/artists-conversation-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Artists in Conversation with Water in Cities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Authors in This Roundtable<\/h3>\n
Antonio Jos\u00e9 Garc\u00eda Cano, Murcia<\/a> Art can promote reflection about our relationship with place: promote attachment place, point out the ecological and cultural values that still remain, and to generate dialogue and imagination about the future.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Katrine Claassens, Montreal<\/a> We had been lulled into hypnotic tap-water love. We filled our lives with the tamed water: swimming pools, fish ponds, saturated lush lawns.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Claudia Luna Fuentes, Saltillo<\/a> The presence in the community of actions and elements originated from art has provoked a reflection beyond art.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Nazl\u0131 G\u00fcrlek, Istanbul & Palo Alto<\/a> Water is not \u201curban\u201d or \u201crural\u201d to me. Water is not this or that concept; it is not separation. It is wholeness, connectedness, oneness. Sacred.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Basia Irland, Albuquerque<\/a> These few brief excerpts are chosen to contrast how rivers in cities are viewed as sacred, as dumping grounds for every form of pollution, and as concrete conveyance channels.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Robin Lasser, Oakland<\/a> Melting ice is one of the clearest images of climate change.\u00a0Our ice ships are clear and black ice cubes, in the shape of the Titanic. They melt in front of the camera, to a soundtrack of love letters sourced from the community.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Marguerite Perret, Topeka<\/a> The Sn\u00e6fellsj\u00f6kull glacier, visible from Reykjavik, is disappearing. Vatnaj\u00f6kull and Langj\u00f6kul glaciers may be gone by the end of the century. Climate change will be challenging here as everywhere. But Iceland is not Iceland without glaciers.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Mary Mattingly, New York<\/a>I wanted to co-learn techniques for living in a city acetic-ly, and to envision an urban center that could be less dependent on material supply chains.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Bonnie Ora Sherk, San Francisco<\/a>It\u00a0began as “Sitting Still l”<\/em>, a temporary performance installation. It evolved into\u00a0urban agriculture, ecology, multi-arts and education center that transformed acres of derelict land fragments.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Nadia Vadori-Gauthier, Paris<\/a> The qualities of water, allied with my experience of dance, both in the studio and in nature\u00a0and the city, greatly influence my way of entering into contact with people and environments.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Alo\u00efs Yang, Prague<\/a>How can a tiny event\u2014a drop of water, or the sound of cracking and melting ice\u2014create feedback loops that eventually can be seen as the whole? Every aspect inside a system is connected to others and capable of revealing the bigger picture.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
Patrick M. Lydon<\/div>\n
\n

about the writer
\n Patrick M. Lydon<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n

An American ecological writer and artist based in East Asia, Patrick uses story and community-based actions to help us rediscover our roles as ecological beings. He writes a weekly column called The Possible City, and is an arts editor here at The Nature of Cities.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

\n
Carmen Bouyer<\/div>\n
\n

about the writer
\n Carmen Bouyer<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n

Carmen Bouyer is a French environmental artist and designer based in Paris. <\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n<\/div>\n

Introduction<\/h3>\n

As human beings who inhabit bodies made mostly of water, connecting to water as an element means connecting to a large part of who we are. Yet more than this, the artists in this roundtable teach us that if we pay close attention, water can help us connect in profound and useful ways to the environments around us.<\/span><\/p>\n

Artists who work closely with water seem to take upon themselves a duty, to help us remember, imagine, and even embody the importance of water to life on this planet, and in our cities. They remind us that rivers run through our cities, but also through our bodies. In connecting the water within us and the water that makes up the world around us, they offer opportunities for the kinds of deepened relationships with the Earth that our society can benefit greatly from. Here, water becomes both teacher, and a sort of guide for us to imagine how we might build cities with respect for this precious element.<\/span><\/p>\n

See a previous roundtable in this series: Artists in Conversation with Air in Cities<\/a>.<\/blockquote><\/figure>In cities, water flows through human infrastructures, from drinkable water systems and agricultural fields, to sewerage systems, it travels through pipes, channels, ravines, aquifers, and treatment plants. Yet water continues to follow its ancient patterns too, ever present as the cohabiting sea, lake, wetland or river, streams, taking form in the weather; the monsoons, the snow storms, and the periods of drought, where withering landscapes, and their co-inhabitants, respond to its sudden absence. <\/span><\/p>\n

Human settlements are responding to water-related issues constantly. Streams and rivers are covered by urban expansion in one area; elsewhere others are unburied and restored. In many parts of the world water pollution is egregious, with two billion humans lacking access to clean water, and countless other beings in nature suffering even worse fates; elsewhere laws to regulate pollution and waste are mitigating or reversing these pollution and access issues. As sea levels rise and climate change affects our cities more broadly in unpredictable ways; in parallel we adapt and protect, creating ecological parks to form living buffers and promoting vibrant water-protecting ecosystems. <\/span><\/p>\n

On an even more fundamental level, changes to social attitudes towards the precious resource of water \u2013 often attained through the collaboration of arts and science \u2013 are driving efforts to create more long-term sustainable ways of living and being with this Earth.<\/span><\/p>\n

For this, our second roundtable, we invite eleven artists to present their conversation with water in cities. Coming from seven different countries\u2014Czech Republic, France, Mexico, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, and the United States\u2014these artists inspire our own experiences with water in cities. They engage with water in the shape of fog, rain, ice, restored wetlands, urban rivers and creeks, city fountains, and reclaimed urban spaces. To them, water is an inclusive moving matter that when listened to, can serve as a conduit to larger understandings. <\/span><\/p>\n

Water is vital, spiritual, and restorative. It is a common that connects us all, to each other, and to our biosphere. The conversations here take various forms, from the performative to the media-based, from poems to sculptures to design, and from community and civic engagement, to methods of collaborative caring for water and for each other. We are pleased to have you discover these conversations with us, and invite you to further enrich them by responding to the work and perspectives together.<\/span><\/p>\n

Carmen Bouyer and Patrick M. Lydon
\n<\/strong>Panel Co-Chairs<\/p>\n

Banner image: \u201cIce Receding\/Books Reseeding\u201d projects. \u201cCleo reading TOME II.\u201d 300-pound ephemeral ice sculpture embedded with native riparian seeds. Photo: Basia Irland<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\n
Nazl\u0131 G\u00fcrlek<\/div>\n
\n

about the writer
\n Nazl\u0131 G\u00fcrlek<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n

Nazli Gurlek is an artist, curator and art writer based between Istanbul and Palo Alto, California. Her work focuses on the physical, emotional, spiritual dimensions of the body, and the micro-politics of affect.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

Nazli G\u00fcrlek
\nIstanbul and Palo Alto<\/h3>\n
Water is not \u201curban\u201d or \u201crural\u201d to me. Water is not this or that concept; it is not separation. It is wholeness, connectedness, oneness. Sacred.<\/blockquote><\/figure>\u201cONE\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

ONE is the choreography of bones, veins, cells, the pineal gland and the spinal chord. This is, ultimately, the choreography of water. Water that flows inside the human body and binds its parts together.<\/p>\n

ONE is my performance art piece inspired by a wall painting dated around 6500 BC, discovered inside a house at the Neolithic site of \u00c7atalh\u00f6y\u00fck (7,100 BC \u2013 5,500 BC, Konya plain, Anatolia, Turkey).<\/p>\n

\"\"
\u00c7atalh\u00f6y\u00fck, 7,100 BC \u2013 5,500 BC, Konya plain, Anatolia, Turkey. Photo: Nazl\u0131 G\u00fcrlek, 2017<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00c7atalh\u00f6y\u00fck holds evidence of the transition from settled villages to urban agglomeration, which was maintained in the same location for nearly 2,000 years. It features a unique streetless settlement of houses clustered back to back with roof access into the buildings. Its eighteen levels of Neolithic occupation include wall paintings, reliefs, sculptures and other symbolic and artistic features. Together they testify to the evolution of social organization and cultural practices as we, humans, adapted to sedentary life. During my first visit to \u00c7atalh\u00f6y\u00fck in June 2016 and throughout the meticulous research period that followed it, I have been fascinated by how the society was organised by small routine rituals including a rich production of wall paintings. Art and symbolism seem to have played an integral part in the formation of society. What can we learn from it today, I wondered, and how can we compare it to our own society?<\/p>\n

\"\"
\u00c7atalh\u00f6y\u00fck wall painting, circa 6500 BC, courtesy of \u00c7atalh\u00f6y\u00fck research project.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The wall painting that has inspired my performance art piece came to my attention during that very first visit. I was captivated by it at first sight. It was so mysterious yet entirely familiar. Since then I have been contemplating its meaning.<\/p>\n

The painting seemed to me to mimic the body\u2014it seemed to move. It seemed to document a process and it was the process itself. It was at once kinetic, volatile, fluid and hollow. It was both abstract and somatic. It reminded me of flesh, bones and nerves; of corporeal vigour. It also reminded me of rivers that flow unhindered; life- giving energy, the power of creation and the boundless source.<\/p>\n

The painting was believed to have been created as a part of a ritual. So I created a new ritual to explore its meaning. My ritual brought together four different ways of expression: painting, documentation, movement, and sound. It involved two 9-metre rolls of paper with drawings that I had made in response to the \u00c7atalh\u00f6y\u00fck painting; visual documentation of the excavation process showing the unveiling of the painting and a live performance based on bodily movements of a performer. A soundtrack based on excavation sounds that I had recorded at the site mixed with sounds of water flows accompanied the performance.<\/p>\n

\"\"
ONE (2017), Nazli Gurlek, performer Asli Bostanc\u0131, 23 September 2017, Ko\u00e7 University\u2019s Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (RCAC), Istanbul<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The performance took place last September on an open terrace in Istanbul overlooking the Bosphorus between 5 and 8 pm centering on the sunset at 7 pm. In the course of the 3 hours the painted rolls were gradually unfolded by the performer as she interacted with the paintings with her own body. She had a series of props at her disposal: cordage, five balls with reflective surfaces, and soil in two copper bowls.<\/p>\n

ONE is ultimately the choreography of water. Water that unites us with each other and with oceans, seas, rivers and all forms of life that have ever existed and will ever exist. Water that is timeless and boundless reminding us that everything on Earth is just ONE big harmonious whole.<\/p>\n

Water is Remembrance<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before art and spirituality became their own concepts, parallel tracks separate from each other as well as from life and Earth, they were embedded together in the way we moved through our days. Spirituality and art were one and the same thing: the sacredness of greeting the sun, the moon and the stars; celebrating the life-giving essence of water, the seasons, the cyclic living and our embeddedness in the grand web of life. This is what it meant to be human \u2013human in a deep belonging and respect for life- and \u00c7atalh\u00f6y\u00fck could be the unique example of an urban agglomeration based on such principles. Our bodies still carry this imprint. Our bodies remember.<\/p>\n

My encounter with the \u00c7atalh\u00f6y\u00fck painting and the project ONE that stemmed from it is the story of this remembrance. It is the story of my body remembering the currents of communication and reciprocity between all beings and its embeddedness in those currents with every breath. It is the story of honoring the life-giving essence of water as well as the inspiration it has provided \u2013in my opinion\u2013 to the inhabitants of \u00c7atalh\u00f6y\u00fck to make that painting.<\/p>\n

Water is not \u201curban\u201d or \u201crural\u201d to me. Water is not this or that concept; it is not separation. It is wholeness, connectedness, oneness. Water for me is not a metaphor nor a vessel of dialogue or exchange. It is not a resource, property nor currency. Water is sacredness. It is the experience of my own very intimate embodiment on Earth, the imprint of my being and my connectedness to all other beings. Water is also primeval, preceding and outliving my own little embodied being on Earth. It is what makes my body remember how to be a human, a woman, fully awake to the magic of Earth.<\/p>\n

Spirituality and art in the face of water -that runs through pipes in our cities just like blood runs through our veins- are one and the same thing, as our bodies remember, embedded in the way we move through our days. I do see that such growing awareness is awakening cities to the magic of Earth, as it once was, in the times of \u00c7atalh\u00f6y\u00fck.<\/p>\n