10,000 Steps for Water

The interdisciplinary art project, “10,000 Steps,” is currently on display in PSU’s Silver Center. It promotes awareness of water-related diseases, water scarcity, and other issues.

Faculty across campus worked with artist Christine Destrempes and the Karl Drerup Gallery to bring the community art project to campus.

The exhibit collaborates with Art for Water, an organization founded by Christine Destrempes. It aims to create an art projects that educate and promote creative self-expression, collaboration, and activism.

Last year on campus there was another community art project that focused on water issues and sustainability called “Stream of Consciousness”. The Office of Environmental Sustainability partnered with the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center and members of the art department to bring together that event, and it was a success.

“Creating awareness of a critically important human rights and environmental issue through the active involvement of the community is a great strength of this effort,” said Brian Eisenhauer, affiliated with The Center for the Environment,

“The connection that is created through people's active involvement in the statement the artist develops is a unique and powerful way to intertwine artistic creativity with many other topics in an interdisciplinary effort to achieve real change.”

Every year, millions of people around the world perish from preventable water-related diseases because they don’t have access to clean water. In places where safe water is plentiful, the impending water crisis goes largely unnoticed.

Cynthia Robinson, Karl Drerup’s gallery direcor, said the exhibit will hit three major points in expressing awareness for the global water crisis. “First, it is a really large visual work that will activate the entire lobby space,” she said.

“Second, the exhibit is one part of a major interdisciplinary project that will (is already) highlighting the many challenges around the world around water. We take having fresh water for granted here in the U.S., and it is not the case in so many countries.”

“Third, the exhibit will make visual how an interdisciplinary project can work - combining research, writing, deep conceptual thinking, scientific data, and art making,” said Robinson.

Kimberly Ritchie and her students in the Art Foundations 2D: Composition and Content class are creating hand-designed posters about global water issues for the exhibit. These posters showcase a variety of global water issues. They visually stimulate the viewers and educate them about a variety of water concerns.

“As an environmental artist myself who works with water issues, this project was of particular interest to me,” said Ritchie.

“When the exhibition is installed, visitors will see through the research conducted in the Environmental Issues class and the fine art posters created in the Art Foundations 2D class that there are a plethora of global water concerns, from the lack of fresh water, even here in the U.S., to contaminating and polluting our fresh water sources, to climate change and the impact on water.”

“10,000 Steps: Exploring Our Footprint and Her Long Walk” is on display in PSU’s Silver Center for the Arts until Dec. 2.

The opening reception is on Nov. 16, and includes refreshments and hands-on printmaking.

CLOCK PHOTO/NIKO ZELINSKI