Text by CLOT Magazine
The CID – centre for Innovation and design at Grand-Hornu (Belgique) aims to promote contemporary design through exhibitions and mediation activities, highlighting innovation, experimental research, and the emergence of new themes and horizons for research in design, architecture and graphic art.
The CID aims to reflect our current society by programming and producing different exhibitions annually. In the Age of Post-Drought, their current exhibition explores how modest or ambitious design projects, artistic, (bio)technological, or hybrid methods can contribute to research on water issues. It is analysed from the perspective of its scarcity, pollution, floods, desertification, etc.
Without water, much of life on earth is not possible. The damage caused by water scarcity is already visible in nature and life in general; many plants and animals perish while biotopes become impoverished. The food chain is unbalanced, endangering organic life forms and sources.
The water cycle is formed by a series of interconnected natural processes embodied in different forms: clouds, plants, trees, groundwater, lake and sea water play a role in this cycle, from distribution to consumption. Agriculture, industry, mobility, sanitation, and waste generation – the sum of human activities – disrupt and degrade the water cycle.
Some of the artists participating are very well known by CLOT Magazine readers: Robertina Šebjanič, Andy Gracie and Frederik de Wilde, who is presenting EOD04, a new media installation based on special species of fish that perceive their environment and communicate with each other by emitting electric signals in water, either in pulses or waves. Other names are Isabelle Daëron, Zoro Feigl, Julien Poidevin, Francesca Sarti and Jólan van der Wiel.
In the Age of Post-Drought is on view until July 25, 2021.
