Interdisciplinary Research Seminar
McMahon and Weinstein co-convened their Art and Architecture research seminars during the 2010 fall semester to explore the role of creative thinkers, artists, designers, architects and urbanists in addressing current critical local and global issues related to water. Participants visited the local Recharge Facility, and had presentations by environmental activist filmmakers, Tucson Water, and faculty and graduate students from English, Geography, and Creative Writing. They shared and discussed research, readings, drawings and other material and conceptual investigations and produced a range of visual projects that explored ways that art and design can function as research methodology, as well as a means to increase public understanding of environmental, social and political issues.
Nicole Adams, Mapstitch
Nicole investigated the terrain, maps of storm drains, dried rivers and washes to explore why Tucson’s streets flood and then almost immediately drain during monsoons. She traveled the Rillito River, along with other dried waterways, to collect plant materials to be used in a tapestry/map based on the question: where does all the water go?
Dani Alvarez, Nile v Colorado
Dani researched how declining water supply and growth in populations have become a source of potentially violent conflicts along border-crossing rivers, challenging previous agreements and disrupting human settlement. Her project, communicated through drawing and a proposal for an installation, illustrates the issues and conflicts surrounding the Nile and the Colorado rivers by layering statistics of population, demographics, and geography.
Monique Bassey, Water Use, Access and Affordability
Monique researched water use in Tucson, Arizona and Kampala, Uganda, in terms of quantity, type of use per capita, access and affordability in relation to household income. Her project illustrates this comparison as clearly as possible to a broad audience.
Christiana Caro, Sky Islands
Christiana photographed local museums and historical sites that are located near the 23 Sky Islands that surround Tucson as a method of exploring ways that local “islanders” curate their own cultural museums, and in effect their own identities. Working in the intersection between documentary and experiential art practice her project combines cultural and geographic issues critical to Tucson’s environment.
Dan Cheek, Sweetwater Wetlands
Dan’s series of photographs taken at the Sweetwater Wetlands juxtapose the natural beauty of the wetland with the machinery and other signs of the wastewater treatment function of the facility. By utilizing different styles of photographic practice–long-views, close-ups, large prints, small prints, and photograms–Dan’s images grapple with personal aesthetic problems as they make subtle references to relationship between humans and the landscape.
John Gialanella REF, YOOS River
John traveled the dry Rillito River bed journaling the time spent, taking photographs, and collecting objects. He created an interactive kit in a box containing a handmade artist book and a collection of discarded manmade objects found in the riverbed. The kit is designed to encourage participants to record their associations with the found objects.
Camden Hardy, Untitled
Camden walked all 22 miles of the Pantano Wash, creating photographic artifacts, such as pinhole negatives and photograms, to signify the end of one mile and the beginning of the next. The process was video-recorded, and images and video were exhibited with journalistic notes of the experience, lists of things found in the wash, and the shoes he wore on the walks.
Jeff Leinenveber, Info graphics for Tucson Water
Jeff researched, analyzed, and organized the necessary data to create information graphics to communicate Tucson’s current general water usage and future projections highlighting the potential “gap” between availability and demand. The end product is a clear and aesthetic means of educating the public about the importance of water conservation in Tucson.
Robert Long, Artist’s Journal
Robert explored the dry bed of the Rillito River and the Sweetwater Wetlands Recharge Facility with a small hand bound journal in which he recorded his surroundings and his encounters with small creatures.
Nicole Sweeney, waterBar
Nicole examined water infrastructure in Tucson—irrigation canals, the CAP, and the soil-cement reinforcement of the Santa Cruz and Rillito Rivers— constructed to prevent flooding, support agriculture and human use. She created a proposal for an installation of water-bottle columns in the Rillito River intended to translate into a tangible experience information about the quantity of water that rushes away and thus is not absorbed into the ground to recharge the aquifer. Custom labels on the bottles communicate facts about water use, cost, chemistry, and the water bottling industry.
Lizzie Timmer, The Water Bottle Project
Lizzie researched the business of bottled water–the corporations, the slogans, the lifestyle messaging, the naming, the contents, the packaging and labeling, and the origins of the water. Her multipage info graphic illustrates her findings and unveils her fictitious company, “Water” with the slogan “its just water” designed to counteract the hype of big water.
Alisa Wilhelm, Desert Cities
Alisa researched the problem of obtaining fresh water in the three desert cities of Tucson, in the US Sonoran Desert; Dalanzadgad, in the Mongolian Gobi Desert; and Dubai, in the UAE Rub’ al Khali Desert. She created a graphic representation of how these populations get fresh water, how water is transported, and water in relationship to the infrastructure of the city.