The first part in a series looking at how we use, share, waste and own (some of us) the resources that everyone needs to survive.
The original inspiration for this piece came after reading this article about how detrimental some international development work can be if it is misinformed. And of course, how killing and poisoning a bunch of people in the developing world hardly even makes the headlines (outside of the left wing press) in the west.
My original idea even included a warning sign above the tap about the hazardous water these girls were gathering.
But when I started working on the image, I was thinking about how obscene it is the way people in the developed world waste drinking water doing superfluous things like washing their cars. Fresh water is a resource that is absolutely essential to life, yet people are still denied that basic need in a highly advance, globalized system.
I started thinking about how I would manage trying to get by on one jug of water a day. The image of these two girls collecting their daily allotment of water transformed into a positive demonstration about the rational use of a limited resource.
In places where water levels are still dictated by rainfall and natural supplies of groundwater, considering the needs of others around you is as vital to your survival as it is to theirs. Surely, we should all strive to develop that level of empathy and self-awareness for our own good.
The hasty paste up before the police drove by on the corner of Fir Tree Lane and Air Balloon Road in Bristol.
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