The book describes my personal observations during the workshop Ingrutatti Palermo as part of ‹Manifesta 12› in July 2018.
In the course of these 10 days, I was part of a group of artists and architects from around the world. Sara Kamalvand’s research on the Qanat water system which was introduced by the Persians in the middle ages served as the starting point. Visits to relevant locations were guided by specialists in the field such as Pietro Todaro. In those days, I captured my observations of water in connection to the city of Palermo, to learn about the different layers of power and the stories around it and around the cracks, so to figure out how to find an oasis amid the dust.
The many stories about water are told from contemporary perspective as well as from the post-war-period, the industrial era, the renaissance, or even the middle ages. Water possesses multifarious qualities and so are the means of origin, like creeks and rivers, dew and rain, a well in the ground or up in the mountains, as well as the means of distribution, be it tubes, buckets, or bottles, made from clay, lead, zinc or copper, glass, plastic, or earthenware; finally the usages are again manifold, if drinking, washing, irrigating, cooling, powering, or transporting is the purpose, either source water, purified water, saltwater or wastewater is needed.
Mariana Mañon and Manolo Larrosa about the project:
In Elke Reinhuber’s visual essay is possible to read that the pictures chosen by the artist show an interest in similarities of form between distant objects, the building principles around water from different cultures, or the passing of time that yoked materials in unsuspected ways. This otherwise unattended typology reveals a whole tradition that speaks about the urban fashions and the decay of the materials that conform a complex landscape. As named by the artist, the cracks become oases from which plants poke out, enjoying the opportunity of binding water and light through the means of its leaves and roots, challenging the inside and outside of the urban condition. These cracks become an opportunity in the impervious regime that ruled XXth century imagination, for other species to inhabit the city.
Through Elke’s work we get to understand that the role water fulfils in urban life has overgrown the hydration of the inhabitants. Water’s capacities as an environment regulator are shown with the examples of the Scirocco rooms, designed by the Persians and inherited by the Romans, or the HVAC systems that leak throughout exhausted hoses over the stradas stones, filling the (already hot) roads of the isle with slowly evaporating water, an interest already present in the artist’s yearlong stay in Cairo. The ancient chambers are produced by a long crack that cools air as it flows along with the underground waters leading to a generous stone chamber, designed to chill a warm summer day, as shown by Elke’s thermal vision photographies. Air conditioning machines, on the other hand, are an accelerated version of the same process, a compressed crack fitted into the private houses interior to offer refreshment.
By comparing these cooling devices we can perceive the same difference in time-space dimension management and the durability of the resources used as between modern water pumping and ancient water infrastructure. A sensibility given by the artist attention to the diversity of techniques functioning at different levels of intensity.
Cracks become oases might be understood as a catalogue, a compilation that registers the different decisions human societies have made to take advantage of the water resources, so necessary for survival and comfort. In her past work, Elke has been keen into the place technology has on our decision making, this book, placed in the entrance of the Ingruttati Palermo’s workshop exhibition, is a means to understand the material and aesthetic regime in the water management of the city, which are further explored in the rest of the artists work.
Exhibited in the Crypt of the Chiesa Parrocchiale, Santa Agnese – Piazza Danisinni from July 27th to November 4th 2018. The work was part of Ingruttati Palermo, a research project led by HydroCity and exhibition of works as part of Manifesta 12 at the Crypt of the Chiesa Parrocchiale Santa Agnese, Piazza Danisinni, Palermo, Sicily