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| 2010-04
“Ha zwei Ooo”: Exhibition about water in ZOOM children’s museumAlongside information about how we use water, how it is provided or battled against, the exhibition “Ha zwei Ooo“(“Aitch-two-oh”) also makes quite a “splash” with installations by artists such as Michael Kienzer and David Moises – presented in a setting designed by architect Michael Wallraff.Children and water together in an interactive exhibition? This was a major challenge for curator Brigitte Felderer who encourages her young public to discover the element water in the museum in a playful way. Alongside information about how we use water, how it is provided or battled against, the exhibition “Ha zwei Ooo“(“Aitch-two-oh”) also makes quite a “splash” with installations by artists such as Michael Kienzer and David Moises – presented in a setting designed by architect Michael Wallraff.Water is essential for life. In fact the earth itself needs water in order to move and the inhabitants of the earth could not survive without water. Catastrophes occur both where there is too much water (flooding), as well as too little (drought). Clean water is valuable, whereas dirty, infected water is a threat to life. Every 15 seconds a child dies as the result of polluted water. In some regions of Africa the duties of women and girls from the age of nine involve transporting water in large vessels. They spend up to eight hours a day just carrying out this work. Depending on their geographical location people can be involved either in battling against water or in bringing it where it is needed. In Austria we live in luxury in terms of water, which indeed is what makes the presentation of a water exhibition possible in the first place. ”Of its nature water is great fun”, explains curator Brigitte Felderer, “but children are a demanding and critical public. Finding my way into this theme required extensive work.” However in Zoom children’s museum the issue is never just conveying knowledge. Here the young visitors are told stories that they can help shape themselves. On the theme of water Felderer explains: “Despite all the drama of what is offered, it’s important that the approach to the theme should remain fun.” Looking at the children running around, boisterous, high-spirited and uninhibited, or dozing on hoses filled almost to bursting point with water, or making films in parched desert landscapes it is clear that ZOOM has certainly been able to link information with interactive participation.The architecture and the presentation in space are of major importance for this exhibition and indeed for every exhibition in the children’s museum. This time the task was undertaken by the young Viennese architect Michael Wallraff. In the first room you plunge into the world of water. The spherical seating element at the centre looks as if it had come from Jules Verne’s “Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea” and the oversized native fish on the walls make even grown-ups seem small by comparison. The children get to know “dry water”, so to speak, through the “Wobbles” by the artist David Moises who put water into water-tight, tied-up plastic shells that resemble sacks. They lie scattered around the floor like huge water bubbles, inviting you to lounge around and to immerse yourself in different worlds. An installation by artist Iris Andraschek directs attention to the magical behaviour of water. In glass containers filled with water small everyday objects mutate to mysterious, weird, fairy tale creatures; tiny living bitterlings and sticklebacks swim around between them in the same basin. Sandy dryness and shortage of water sources are conveyed by an illusionistic wall painting that suggests a desert region. A contemporary handling of the theme is provided by electronic media as well as child-friendly interviews and the spatial experience offered by a tent that you can walk into. Behind the desert there is a wonderful “forbidden” installation where a river flows over a landscape of furniture. Contained by narrow aluminium tracks at the sides, the water flows across the surface of the fittings, making it seem as if the entire furnished room were the bed of a stream. The children gather here, as in former times around the (legendary) village fountain. Real water gushes and bubbles, there is a paradisiacal feeling of freedom. Commenting on his installation the artist Michael Kienzer says: ”The fact that water runs across furniture has something anarchic, primordial about it. It reminds me of a sentence from Rainer Metzger: ‘The correctness of the wrong use’. Water is a free material and makes its own way, at times destructively.” For the children the unusual watercourse is intended as an inspiration to make all kinds of water resistant objects for experimental use. In the last room there is a large machine standing in a pool of water. The water power pumping station looks like a magical-water-dream-machine and at the end of the show demonstrates just how much power water can produce when this energy is channelled – and the children are also involved here in making things well and truly “splash” and “gush”. Brigitte Felderer is an exhibition curator and lecturer at the University of Applied Arts, Department of Art and Art Sociology. Together with Ernst Strouhal she published the anthology “Rare Künste” about the media history of the art of magic. Ulrike Guggenberger is an art historian, freelance curator and journalist as well as an art educationalist at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg. Curator and concept: Brigitte Felderer Architect: Michael Wallraff Exhibition graphic design: Loys Egg Production: Virgil Guggenberger Artists: Iris Andraschek Jürgen Claus Michael Kienzer and Tom Klengel David Moises » Back to report |
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