Illinois College Contemporary Art Gallery

Meghan R.: Is the Museum of Water derived from a global perspective, with contemporary concerns? If so, in what way?

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Amy Sharrocks: The invitation of the Museum implicates each one of us in this universe, pinpoints out choice, reminds us of our position on earth and helps us ponder our relationship with the planet. The global perspective is clear and urgent throughout.

 

MR: What will you keep? 

 

AS: This is a cosmic perspective too, that comes from understanding that the water in the collection is many different, particular waters, and part of one whole. We are part of the timeline and geography of this earth and this planet system, which is both reassuring and dizzying. It serves to remind us of our tiny scale in this universe, and also of our impact on our small part of it, how we can affect the shape and nature of our planet.

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MR: What do you hope people will take from the collection and the experience of participating in collecting their own bundles of water?

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AS: One of the greatest things someone said to me about an artwork (not the Museum, but a following work) - I asked her why she joined in, and she said, ‘I felt compassion’. This has always stuck with me, and might go a little way to answering your question. For participants, I think it is different. I hope they are afterwards more able to feel and understand their own agency in the world. To feel powerful, an agent of change, that their actions matter.

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MR: In what ways does the collection challenge artistic conventions?

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AS: I think the Museum challenges artistic and Museum conventions. In Australia I put a sign under the accessioning room - 'est. 2013' - presenting the artwork as a space to talk, a conceptual space to think together, that might be permanently accessible to each of us even if not readily available as an actual site at all times. I like the fact that this is a disappearing artwork, an artwork that is constantly slipping through our fingers, whose understandings are constantly changing. It's just a whisper after all.

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MR: How would you describe the Museum of Water as a work of art?

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AS: It's a live artwork.

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MR: What would you say the role of “the artist” is today? What do you think are the most

eminent questions facing artists today?

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AS: How to live.

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MR: What is the evaporation process to you? Therapeutic? A metaphor for what was? A lesson? A warning?

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AS: All of those and more. Death, life, the connection between all of us, the process of give and take in the world.

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MR: What role do you think the provided bottle plays, for the participator or the viewer?

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AS: It's such an intimate object. It tells you so much about the person and their life, their choices. Like the handwriting on the labels it is a kind of fingerprint.

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MR: What else can we do to aid in distributing your message throughout the world?

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AS: Keeping the planet liveable for the billions of people who want to live on it is the most crucial work for all of us. So the market for all of our museums in this conference should be, how do we effect change? We have to bring about a re-consideration of water, of our days, and our environmental impact. As Donna Haraway says, ‘You have to keep doing positive things. You have to do this, you have to be here now, doing this.’ This takes stamina and we all need to join in.