Marjetica Potrč/Ooze, "Source de Friche" (2002)
"Source de Friche" was a constructed wetland that provided drinking water in an urban wasteland. It was situated on half of a former Shell Oil industrial site, where water had accumulated in a large depression. Although the site had been decontaminated, the water remained polluted. In the project, the polluted water was processed through a constructed wetland, a system that uses helophyte filter plants for purification. In this way, nature's ability to restore itself was on display. Although the water was purified, it did not meet all European regulations for drinking water for humans, so the artists labelled it as water of "drinkable quality exclusively for non-humans." The project thus addresssed the issue of water as the world's most precious resource in the 21st Century.
Copyright 2017 Sue Spaid