Tapping into watery relations.
Water flows through all our aspects of life — our bodies, the food we depend on, the environment we live in, and the bodies we share it with.
Through a constant circulation of intake, transformation, and exchange, we enact watery relations constantly – whereby often unconsciously.
Water is a constant wet companion within ourselves, the spaces we share, and our activities — from cooking, washing dishes, drinking a glass of water, brushing our teeth, or taking a shower. Despite its importance, water is often undervalued in our commodity culture through habitual consumption and disposal.
What if we viewed our watery relationships from a new perspective — one of friendship?
Can you rely on tap water? Have you ever been let down by it? Or do you fear your future relationship? What kind of whispers about the freshwater situation have you overheard in your geographical context? Was there a scandal with the neighborhood taps? What thoughts about tap water have you kept to yourself—compliments, complaints, secrets, or advice? What kind of friend is water to you?
“Tapping water” is an unfolding platform holding space for our various relationships with tap water circulating through our bodies, environments, and political systems. Entering the complexities of the freshwater in states of crisis from positioned (hi)stories to speculate upon new imaginaries of this wet companion we interact with and depend on daily. To start asking: How could we think about something as local as our taps and as global as fresh water?
By offering a perspective of friendship towards our waters, expanding our understanding and solidarities of this essential resource as a political counteract to extractive commodity framings. Not only as a commons but also as a commonality that fluidly connects us.
First Writing Exercise (individual)
Within the exercise, the participants were invited to a writing session reflecting on their memories. Exploring the various relationships each experiences with tapped water –from compliments to complaints.
Second Writing Exercise (group of three people)
In the second exercise, the participants shared some slippery (hi)stories, they overhead about the freshwater situation in their geographical context.
01 Something necessary; new beginnings; renew/recharge; open comfort; bond/connector; possibilities of life → Home
02 Somehow, I am so used to tap water being controlled and checked that I tend to trust it more than fresh mountain-source water. In Corsica this summer, we were “tapping” water from a rock high up. It is supposed to be good, but it was still wacky. The taste was good.
03 I mostly rely on tap water. My mom always says you won’t easily die from it. I was let down by it a couple of times, though. It also happened yesterday morning when I was looking so much forward to that first sip, but it tasted like a swimming pool—yuk! Also, when I encounter a new tap abroad, I often fear it. It’s such a luxury that it tastes so fresh in my current hometown, but I don’t know how and where that will be in the future. I don’t fear it, maybe because I don’t think much about it. I once heard that you shouldn’t drink water directly from a high mountain stream because it contains too many minerals, making you sick! I love the tap at home.
04 Rainwater is acid. // We pee and shit in drinkable water. // In public spaces, fountains are rare. // I’M REPULSED BY SWIMMING BY THE POOL DON’T TRUST THEM. // Water is a way of transportation; it shapes the industrialized city. // Let’s open up again to shelter non-human lives and use charcoal to purify it. // Water in Brussels isn’t trustworthy and has bad taste, and too many fosters are old privet loom drinkable water. // Water was never at our table; it was softs/coffee/tea–water is to wash
or boil or for the plants. I hated water–refused to wash myself, my teeth and it still now demands me an effort.
05 I’ve always been taught to conserve water, as Singapore has zero natural water resources. Our water comes from Malaysia or recycled sewage. Our armies are “borne” to go to war if Malaysia cuts off our water supply. //water is our “Helen of Troy”// A dead body in the water tank turned the water brown. // I was almost drowned by water, but I don’t have a phobia.
06 Tap water was something I could always rely on. Where I come from, it is always clean, tasty, and fresh. I was surprised the first time I traveled to a place where you should rather not drink it. Once, I was super hungover in Rabat, and every shop was closed, and it was a national holiday. In this situation, I realized how much luck we have with our great tap water.
07 What does murky water hide? Antique guns? Bodies? Are drugs on tap? Free Alkohol? Cave-diving in Brussels? Waterbeach-walks.
08 I once heard that a high school in Belgium had an outbreak of Chlamydia, so they started // Scientists fear antibiotics might become a huge water pollutant in the future. // SCANDAL: the Croatian government privatizes fresh water sources, selling them to foreign investors. // In the 15th century, there was a surge in antisemitism during the Black Plague. Jews were being accused of poisoning sources and wells, resulting in persecution.
09 As a Dutch person, I feel that our relationship with water is very underappreciated, and I always mourn its absence during the increasingly hot summers when the river gets lower, the water smelly, and the fields dry and yellow. I always long for periods of rain after periods of warmth because even though the warmth is nice, it needs balance, even out. Its absence sometimes drives me to the point of anxiety.
10 01 I think there is a general trust in water. // 02 I was let down yesterday. // 03 scandal in Zwijnaarde 3M > Pfos // 04 Spring water gives me good memories. // 05 Water is a lovehate relationship, but more like a BFF. // 06 I LOVE WATER. Big compliments, good rate. // 07 I fear the future, especially with climate change (sea water). // 08 We don’t have enough water in Belgium.
11 Vojvodina, the autonomous province in northern Serbia, has been troubled with tap water for decades. Cities like Zrenjanin don’t have proper, clean tap water (e.g., the tap water is completely brown). A public tap in a public space in one city has also been unsafe for consumption for a long time—yet many people continue to drink from it. Some even believe in its healing power and claim that pregnant women should drink that nasty water.
12 I don’t know if water can be a friend when I so desperately need her, but she doesn’t need me. It’s kind of an overly skewed relationship.
13 When the tap water turns brown in Singapore, it is often caused by a dead body in the water tanks on the roof.
14 Sacred water lakes in Ethiopia are being appropriated through the church. // Drinking piss.
15 I never saw or felt this view of water as luxurious when I moved to Europe. Is it better to drink it still or sparkling? From these alps or those alps? I even heard about the water sommelier. He only interacts with high-class water. He looks down at the tap water. His tongue can taste all the subtle differences in the water that I can’t. But maybe this is because I’m bad at drinking water somehow. She always evokes my thoughts of that slippery fox.
16 So I am no stranger to you—you live—and you bring me something living-you, something my body to live with you. Regardless, when I can no longer hold you, I decide to let you go... But I find it unfair because I want to make you feel alive as much as you do me—I want to nourish you as much as you nourish me.
17 I didn’t grow up with any filter solution for our tap water at home. The quality was never an issue to discuss, but when I grew older, more privileged families started to bring filters to purify their drinking water. I always had this sense that the wealthy purify, and the taste of pipes, dirt, and what’s hot as part of the taste of the water, but I could not trust those filters. And they are seen to bring out different tastes—artificial, cleaning, and other toxic particles. I could never corporate with it. Choosing un-filtered tap water felt like a kind of resistance and a reminder of where I grew up, where the dirt is taking a crucial role with my identity.
18 Every Monday, from around 10 to around 5, there is no water in the apartment building where I live. I often forget to shower at that time. Other times there is water, but it is only cold. I think the problem might be because last Monday there was water all day. // I used to live with my friend who loves baths as much as I do. We even sometimes take a bath together. // Taking a bath is the best feeling there is. I love it so much that I would take it every day if I could, but I don’t have a bathtub at home. // While hiking in the mountains, we had to take a lot of water. The weather was hot, and I was nervous that we would run out. During the hike, we swam in the ice-cold lakes. I think that water was drinkable because it was so clear and fresh, but I didn’t try. A day later, we refilled our bottle at a natural source. In the evening, the water was running slowly; in the morning, it was faster.
19 3M → PFOS → TOXIC → replace ground → BAD
Now/After → protection and mice perfect habitat
contaminated water // Drinking pee = cancer cleanse
over pop
Participants:
Aurélie de Mol
Elena Braida
Luc van Basten Batenburg
Lucien Schmidt-Berteau
Martijn Van de Wiele
Mayomi Basnayaka
Oscar van Leest
Pavle Mijuca
Robin Vandenbussche
Rosie Romero
Tal Stadler
Zhiyi Cao
Nina Blume Spring 2023
Typefaces: New Edge 6666 (Charlotte Rohde) Keroïne Doux Extreme (Charlotte Rohde)
Sandberg Instituut (Gerrit Rietveld Academie)
Department: Studio for Immediate Spaces
Collected and archived on the occasion of Studio for Immediate Spaces (Sandberg Instituut) and Faculty of Architecture (KU Leuven) Workshop
“Why can’t we be friends” organized by María Mazzanti and Rosie Romero in Brussels on 12th of February 2023.
