Something in the Water investigates how foraged pigments and contaminated streams can function as material evidence, positioning water as an active agent within hydrosocial systems rather than a passive element of natural cycles. Developed through fieldwork in Blairadam Forest, Scotland, the project focuses on rust-stained streams whose orange sediment derives from flooded coal mines, treating this iron oxide not simply as residue but as a record of industrial history persisting in the present.
Drawing on the concept of the hydrosocial cycle, which understands water and society as mutually produced rather than separate domains 1, the work examines correlations between regional tap water data and historic mining sites. Clay sourced in relation to the site’s geology is stained with locally foraged pigment and formed into tiles that encode postcode, contamination level, and mineral concentration. In this way, extracted material becomes both medium and dataset, transforming numerical information into tactile form.
Susan Schuppli writes that “material witnesses are non-human entities and machinic ecologies that archive their complex interactions with the world,”2 a proposition that frames the project’s approach. The final outcome takes shape as a freestanding sculptural chart in which ceramic tiles are arranged within a steel structure, presenting environmental data as a spatial, sensory encounter. By translating contamination into material form, Something in the Water proposes an alternative mode of reading evidence—one that foregrounds how landscapes retain and transmit the aftereffects of extractive industry.
