Water as banknotes and gold bars. A reflection on the value of water and the privatization by companies of our most valuable resource. A look at our future and our relationship to money and water.

Value of Water is leading us to a dystopian future, where water has replaced money. Clear and transparent water as we know it is now a thing of the past, and drinking water has become a real privilege in a world overwhelmed by pollution. Water is no longer a right, but a private good, marketed and subject to speculation. Water has become a luxury reserved for an elite, a safe haven just like gold.

By giving water the iconic shape of banknotes and ingots, the artwork Value of Water introduces in a falsely naive way a reflection on the current relationship between clean water and its monetary value. Water can be seen here as a symbol of all of our planet’s resources, including the broader notions of climate and biodiversity. The form evoked by money is then synonymous with the human action on its environment, the global policy of exploitation of resources, and more generally the human/nature disconnection at the time of the Anthropocene.

The artwork Value of Water also draws a parallel, a correlation, between the disappearance of our most precious resource, water, and the collapse of the stability of our societies based on profit and inequality. As dramatic droughts are gaining ground and the oceans are irremediably polluted, and access to drinking water is increasingly threatened, we can see, we can guess, the inexorable melting of the social and geopolitical order, as glaciers and ice caps.

Value of Water has two facets. The first as an ephemeral artwork, made of ice. The second as a perennial artwork, made of transparent resin, allowing the presentation to the public. Both versions of the work use custom handmade silicone molds.