Trash as art — a concept. And Dirty Watercolor embraces that concept. The 22-piece art project uses the medium of water to raise awareness for environmental degradation. Riverbed soil samples collected from a variety of waterways in the Philippines served as the basis of the pigments used in the watercolor paintings. Falling on the darker end of the color spectrum, the pigments reflect the silt, crude oil, heavy metals, and biological waste that have increasingly contaminated the rivers. Some artists have described the painting process as “dirty” and “stinky,” indicating that the sterilization of the pigments was not quite enough to full mask their toxicity.
But for countless families in the Philippines, toxic water is a part of everyday reality. With limited access to running water or sewage facilities, the slums that emerge along these rivers have no way of acquiring safe water sources. So they rely on what they have in front of them. Dirty Watercolor took inspiration from the daily scenes along the Pasig river — children splashing around, people bathing, men boating with the hopes of catching a meal. In 2004, five of Manila’s rivers were declared biologically dead, including the Pasig.
The contamination of these waterways not only poses a public health threat to the people in these communities, but it also partially destroys the history and culture on which their lives (and their ancestors’ lives) were built. Dirty Watercolor aims to counteract the implications of this environmental catastrophe. The revenue from the art pieces has been allocated toward rehabilitation efforts in the communities that have been directly afflicted. But perhaps more importantly, this project has raised the bar of social consciousness. In order to effectively halt the disasters of climate change, society as whole must recognize the issue first. And then act ambitiously.
"One man's trash is another man's treasure." Artists in the Philippines have literally embraced this old saying to shine a light on the contamination of Manila's waterways. #bcsfh2o https://t.co/VdxmtoM7R9 pic.twitter.com/tirRWOkq5B
— Jordan Williams (@jordwill98) November 9, 2017
