Open Dump

By Wong Yat Wai

My project is about water pollution, and I hope it will arouse people’s awareness of water pollution.

Water is essential and necessary for most of the living things including humans, plants, and animals. Without water, living things cannot survive, especially living things under seas, lakes, and other water surfaces. More importantly, water must be clean enough for living things to survive. If water is not clean, living things may absorb the bacterial, or may be poisoned, infected and get sick, and then die. Besides, polluting water also
affects the environment, and affecting the environment also affects humans’ lives . In other words, there is a vital relationship between humans and water: NO CLEAN WATER, NO LIFE.

Unfortunately, most of the people do not recognize this relationship.

As we can see, many human activities are polluting clean water resources nowadays, especially mass production activities by industries, and I consider that these activities are one kind of ‘chronic suicide’ indirectly. I dare to say that polluting water resources is an effective way to suicide (I have mentioned the reason above). Also, if humans pollute water resources, they also murder, because most of the living things need clean water to survive, including humans. My artwork is about how many living things the different activities murder.

My artwork includes a wall and several ‘murder meter’. There are some photos of human activities on the wall. Below these photos, there are other photos that show the scenes of dead living things near these human activities, such as dead fish, dead mammals, and other dead animals. Living things in the photo die because they absorb the polluted water polluted by human activities shown in the photos on the upper side of the wall. Also, below the ‘living things photos’, there are fish tanks embedded in the wall with water taken from the seas, lakes, or rivers near the human activities according to each of the photo, and there is one fish living in each of the fish tank. If the human activity in one of the photo does not pollute water adversely, the fish living in the fish tank below that ‘human activity photo’ can survive, and the living things in the ‘living things photo’ do not die. In contrast of this, if the human activity in the ‘ human activity photo’ adversely pollute the water, the ‘living things photo’ below will show that there are many living things die, and the fish living in the fish tank below will die. Also, by seeing the colour, the transparencies and the visibilities of the water in the fish tanks, the fish tanks can show the cleanness of the water near these human activities.

EXAMPLE 1:

The top photo (human activities photo) shows ‘organic farming’ (organic farming does not pollute the water so much, and it is environmentally-friendly)
The photo below (living things photo) shows that ‘many living things can survive, a few animals die’. (because they absorb the clean water)
The fish tank below shows that a fish can survive in the water taken from the river near the farm

EXAMPLE 2:

The top photo (human activities photo) show ‘farming with many chemicals, fertilizers, and machines’ (it adversely pollute water)
The photo below (living things photo) shows that ‘many living things die’. (because they absorb the polluted water)
The fish tank below shows that a fish dies in the water taken from the rivers near the farm. (because the rivers near the farms are adversely polluted)

Let’s talk about the ‘murder meter’. There are several murder meter near the photos. There is a monitor on each of the meter. People can take up these meters and move it towards the photos. When people move it towards the photos or the fish tanks, the monitor will show how many living things the human activity in the photo can kill per day, the name of the human activities, and the name of the chemicals and bacterial in the water.

This artwork can show people that how many living things a human activity kills, the situation of the water near these human activities, and the cleanness of the water near these human activities. This artwork can also indirectly show that consumer behavior can also affect the quality of water indirectly. For example, if we buy goods from manufacturers that does not adversely pollute water, we will encourage these manufacturers using clean production method indirectly. In contrast of this, if we buy goods from manufacturers that adversely pollute water, we will encourage these manufacturers using dirty production method indirectly. I hope people can aware of the problem of water pollution more after watching my artwork.