# The Aquatopia Water Fountain

## Aquatopia takes a critical view of our freshwater supplies, its increasing demand and pollution. In the UK, known for its rainy weather, we may not recognise the urgency to consider our water consumption. However, the combined impact of climate change, our food choices and our lifestyle are all putting increasing pressure on the water supply. With more frequent, prolonged, and severe droughts projected in the coming years, water shortages will cause serious problems for agriculture. Currently, UK farmers rely more on rainfall than irrigation with public water, but warmer and drier summers could see the need for irrigation increase. By 2040, over half of our summers are expected to be hotter than the 2003 heatwave, increasing the likelihood of water shortages and significantly depleting our river levels. Meanwhile, the UK population is set to rise from 67 million to 75 million by 2050, increasing the demand for water across the country.

## The Aquatopia fountain project initially started in 2019\. I was invited to participate in Camden Alive, a community project for residents of the London Borough of Camden. Together with K2 Academy’s co-founder and co-director, Kelvin Birk, we were commissioned to develop our own art project and conduct workshops for Camden residents, with the involvement of jewellery students of K2 Academy. Following the theme of ‘value’, each participant brought an object or material which told a story about its owner and embodied a personal value to them. Working co-creatively, residents learnt about my practice and the electroforming technique. To Address and highlight the fundamental values and access to freshwater resources, participants helped me repurpose an old, industrial structure with a hanging 50-litre bell jar into a drinking fountain. Organic materials and objects supplied by the participants were assembled around the frame and then coated with copper using the electroforming technique. 

## In 2022 work resumed on the fountain - by adding additional embellishments made of organic materials. Featuring memento mori motifs, the final water sculpture includes several skulls and bones alongside many dried plants, reminding us of our dependency on the water to create and sustain life. To portray my imaginative view of organic decay, objects are wrapped like mummies in leaves and flower petals, before being coated with copper, resembling a way we may perish and fade back to Earth. 

## A hanging, overgrown secret garden, draped around an industrial frame, surrounds an old milking jar suspended at its centre. Water drips very slowly from a tap at the bottom of the jar into a bowl underneath collecting the water, which subsequently evaporates at a slow rate, displaying the inherent, volatile properties of water. The journey of the water from the bell jar, through the tap, into the bowl, and then changing condition from liquid to vapour, plays with the notion of our existence. We die and decay, leaving behind traces of the building blocks of life. Similarly, limescale minerals deposited on the glass and the collecting bowl are the remaining traces of water, speaking of its absence.

## Most of the water fountain was produced with the electroforming technique, a process in which a layer of copper is deposited on a surface that was made conductive. Further elements were resin coated, painted, and assembled. 

  
Image by Will Cooper 

  

Aquatopia Water Fountain Detail

# The Aquatopia Water Fountain

## Aquatopia takes a critical view of our freshwater supplies, its increasing demand and pollution. In the UK, known for its rainy weather, we may not recognise the urgency to consider our water consumption. However, the combined impact of climate change, our food choices and our lifestyle are all putting increasing pressure on the water supply. With more frequent, prolonged, and severe droughts projected in the coming years, water shortages will cause serious problems for agriculture. Currently, UK farmers rely more on rainfall than irrigation with public water, but warmer and drier summers could see the need for irrigation increase. By 2040, over half of our summers are expected to be hotter than the 2003 heatwave, increasing the likelihood of water shortages and significantly depleting our river levels. Meanwhile, the UK population is set to rise from 67 million to 75 million by 2050, increasing the demand for water across the country.

## The Aquatopia fountain project initially started in 2019\. I was invited to participate in Camden Alive, a community project for residents of the London Borough of Camden. Together with K2 Academy’s co-founder and co-director, Kelvin Birk, we were commissioned to develop our own art project and conduct workshops for Camden residents, with the involvement of jewellery students of K2 Academy. Following the theme of ‘value’, each participant brought an object or material which told a story about its owner and embodied a personal value to them. Working co-creatively, residents learnt about my practice and the electroforming technique. To Address and highlight the fundamental values and access to freshwater resources, participants helped me repurpose an old, industrial structure with a hanging 50-litre bell jar into a drinking fountain. Organic materials and objects supplied by the participants were assembled around the frame and then coated with copper using the electroforming technique.

## In 2022 work resumed on the fountain - by adding additional embellishments made of organic materials. Featuring memento mori motifs, the final water sculpture includes several skulls and bones alongside many dried plants, reminding us of our dependency on the water to create and sustain life. To portray my imaginative view of organic decay, objects are wrapped like mummies in leaves and flower petals, before being coated with copper, resembling a way we may perish and fade back to Earth.

## A hanging, overgrown secret garden, draped around an industrial frame, surrounds an old milking jar suspended at its centre. Water drips very slowly from a tap at the bottom of the jar into a bowl underneath collecting the water, which subsequently evaporates at a slow rate, displaying the inherent, volatile properties of water. The journey of the water from the bell jar, through the tap, into the bowl, and then changing condition from liquid to vapour, plays with the notion of our existence. We die and decay, leaving behind traces of the building blocks of life. Similarly, limescale minerals deposited on the glass and the collecting bowl are the remaining traces of water, speaking of its absence.

## Most of the water fountain was produced with the electroforming technique, a process in which a layer of copper is deposited on a surface that was made conductive. Further elements were resin coated, painted, and assembled.

  
image by Will Cooper 

The Aquatopia Water Fountain 

3 day-installation at Collect Open at Saatchi Gallery, people were invited to dismantle the edible sculpture and quite literally break the food chain

The Future of Apis Melifera 

Crude oil turned into solid jewellery melts on the body due to body temperature 

Best Before 

Crude oil painting #1 from the 1.8 performance 

Crude Oil Painting #2 from the 1.8 performance 

Glass, plumbing pipe, copper, copper patina 

Aquatopia Water Storage 

Copper, steel, mixed media, copper patina

Aquatopia Bowl 

Glass, copper and limescale patina on glass 

Copper, pine cones, lab glass, lime scale

Aquatopia Water Storage

Part of the Aquatopia collection, this sculpture narrative is based on water scarcity

Aquatopia Bath

1.8 takes the viewer on a journey to realise how much oil we use daily and to question the consequences of this consumption.

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Katrin Spranger