The end of 2008 saw the launch of The Water Hole, a major installation by renowned Swiss artists Steiner and Lenzlinger. The artists created a fantasia of ecology in ACCA’s large hall. In the side galleries a flow out of projects including meteors suspended over beds, a crystal room and a desalination laboratory. The Water Hole, devised specifically for ACCA, referenced Australia’s acute climate challenges as well as the pressure of global waste. The project created a story of place, a fable if you like. And in the tradition of the fable, the artists employed animals, plants and inanimate objects to tell a story that has a moral and ethical dimensions.
The Water Hole was a big story – filled with pleasurable things but also with the message of peril. The artists created environments that enabled the visitor to consider and sense our place in history, and our attention to striking a balance between our consumptive desiring and nature.
Exhibiting Artists: Gerda Steiner, Jorg Lenzlinger
Commissioning Curator: Juliana Engberg
Coordinating Curator: Charlotte Day
Publication
Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger: The Water Hole
In the Press
10 January, The Age, Elegy for a drying land
21 January, The Age, They've made you a river bed, now lie in it
