about water
Donizete Araújo, age 29

about water
2015 Group exhibition "Waterbound – Vom Leben mit dem Wasser", Kallmann Museum, Ismaning, Germany
2012 exhibition "wasser-werke" Club Transatlântico, São Paulo, Brazil

Portraits of people from the region Guarapiranga, photographed at the residence or at work. The photos
show single persons with enclosed texts of their personal story about water. Guarapiranga is a suburb of 
Sao Paulo at a lake used as a water reservoir surrounded by favelas. Poverty and insufficient access to
clean water affects the whole region. The exhibition contains 10 tables with portrait and text in Portuguese
a 70 x 50 cm on alu-dibond.

Two and a half years later, at the end of 2014/beginning of 2015, the stories of this portrait work became terrifyingly real: The six water tanks of Sao Paulo are empty and this is not only due to the draught,  like the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports on January 19, 2015 with the article "On a drip". In Rio de Janeiro, the water is running short as well. Worldwide the media is reporting about the current water crisis.

about water pdf english | pdf german

wasser-werke: workshop | exhibition | press

São Paulo water crisis - media reports I PDF

 

about water
Clebson da Silva Pereira, age 29

about water
Jailton, age 23 
about water
Maria Cicera Severa, age 54
 
about water
Avair, age 52
about water
Maria do Carmo, age 73
 
about water
Beatriz, age 15
about water
Lourdes Oliveira, age 49
about water
Regina Santos Viana, age 56

about water
Antônio Pereira Nascimento & Maria Josefa do Nascimento, age 68 

The rapid growth of the city São Paulo - inhabited by one million in 1934 and grew to one of the biggest cities worldwide with 11 million in the centre and 20 million in the whole region - caused immense environmental problems that especially affect the water quality. Informal settlements that accumulated at the Reserva Guarapiranga - the city’s biggest reservoir – had a bad influence on the drinking water quality. But also industrial waste in one of the globally most evolving region with the porous environmental standards of a developing nation play an essential role in the deterioration of the situation. The discharge of untreated waste water affects the eco system and leads to a gradual contamination of the drinking water that seems to be abundantly available in Brazil. An announced promise in the year 2000 that up to 2014 whole São Paulo will be connected the sewage system and to biologically treat the waste water could not be kept; the share of treated waste water even declined.