Water Market (2021)

Installation, 30 ceramic pieces (45 x 30 x 30 cm each).

The installation is composed of ceramic pieces made out of a 20l plastic bottle. 20l is also the amount of water each monoculture industry tree needs to grow, specifically species like eucalyptus, avocado, and pine radiata. Each bright blue enameled ceramic has a phrase from the Water Code of Chile carved on its surface, created during Pinochet’s dictatorship, which also consecrates Chilean water as a marketable good and states that it can be sold in its Water Market, inherited from the dictatorship.

The work proposes thinking about the language we use, the water code still prevailing within the Chilean constitution, the ways of distributing water using plastic bottles, and the present neoliberal system of Chile, which will trade anything to please the market, even water.

Photographs by Diego Argote