Don’t waste water — that’s one of the key messages of Florida Atlantic University’s new public art exhibition, "Overflows."
Three South Florida artists used felt and various types of fibers to weave and knit artwork around the theme of water sustainability, spotlighting the lack of access to safe drinking water in underserved communities around the world.
Jamaican artist Michelle Drummond’s Navigating the System consists of yarn, glue and acrylic paint on canvas, mimicking a three-dimensional water stream. Her other sculptures often reimagine faucets and water drops.
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Drummond, of Delray Beach, who was inspired by water issues in Kingston, Jamaica, says the recognizable objects at FAU’s "Overflows" exhibition are meant to “evoke an emotion” and “provoke conversations” about subpar water quality and sanitation inequities in rural communities everywhere.
“If you look globally, it’s the same conditions that other underserved communities are enduring,” told WLRN. “And people need to be more aware of this.”
The U.N. World Water Development report says 1 in 4 people around the world do not have access to clean drinking water and 46% of people lack access to basic sanitation. Water scarcity is becoming “endemic as a result of the local impact of physical water stress, coupled with the acceleration and spreading of freshwater pollution," says the report.
Drummond said FAU’s "Overflows" exhibition, with its use of natural materials, also symbolizes changing climate conditions.
“With climate change, you have a lot more droughts going on,” Drummond said. “That’s impacting even the quality of water ecosystems and the environment.”
The theme of mother nature is interwoven throughout the exhibit. Raw wool installations and tapestries from Miami-based artists Evelyn Polizer and Andrea Spiridonakos bring those natural connections alive.
Polizer’s Every Drop Counts, hanging from the ceiling, is made of hand-dyed yarn, embroidery, and repurposed fibers. Spiridonakos’s Let Me Sow Low, uses materials such as Cuban mahogany, raw wool, silk fiber, mohair, and and alpaca thread.
Veronique Cote, the Galleries Director and Exhibition Curator, said across societies, the art collection not only highlights the role women play in collecting water in underserved communities, but that it studies “water’s political, aesthetic, and economic implications.”
IF YOU GO:
"Overflows” runs through October 28 at Florida Atlantic University's Ritter Art Gallery.
Where: 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton, FL, 33431
When: Tuesday-Friday, 1–4 p.m.; Saturday, 1–5 p.m. Closed on Sundays and Mondays. Learn more here.
