Antarctica World Passport Delivery Bureau and OrtaWater Purification Factory - 9th Shanghai Biennial, 2012

For the 9th Shanghai Biennial Lucy + Jorge Orta were commissioned to make three large-scale installations for the Power Art Museum: OrtaWater Purification Factory, Antarctica World Passport Delivery Village and Nexus Architecture.

OrtaWater focuses on the scarcity of the natural resource, its pollution, the purification processes and methods of distribution. The sculptures and installations in the series are both playful and provocative, incorporating fully functioning low-cost purification machinery, bottling stations and distribution devices that pump, filter and purify filthy water from neighboring polluted water sources, which is then distributed to visitors in the museums where the work is exhibited.

OrtaWater Purification Factory is a fully functioning, mobile water purification system. The work will draw from Shanghai’s Huang Pu River to pump water up 20 metres into the museum’s third floor where it will be purified in a 'factory' installation constructed from reclaimed wood and bamboo.

The Zillie Fluvial Unit, an immense floating water-bar displays hundreds of commercial water bottles from around the world to pose questions surrounding the privatization and corporate control that affects universal access to clean water.

The installation Antarctica Passport Delivery Village is a collection of small huts made with all kinds of reclaimed materials, erected on stilts and interconnected by a raised platform of bamboo. Due to the effects of global warming it is estimated that sea levels will raise 0.5 to 1.4 meters over the next 100 years, but the village should remain safe! To mark its presence, the Metisse Flag will indicate the delivery bureau, where a passport officer will hand out the third edition of the Antarctica World Passport. Printed in Chinese for the occasion of the Shanghai Biennale, tens of thousands of passports will be distributed to the visitors of the Museum, to welcome new members into the Antarctica world community, based on the founding principles of the Antarctic Treaty.

• http://www.shanghaibiennale.com/2012/ewe...
• http://www.studio-orta.com
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