Water-Gift: Carry me home

Performance – Installation by Joachim Eckl

 

December 2008 – February 2009
Museum of Modern Art
Cairo

 

1 Barrel of Nile-water, 2 Buckets, 3 Ladles, 365 empty glass bottles, Video

 

Exhibition by Joachim Eckl as part of a joint show with Rasha Ragab in the Egyptian Museum of Modern Art in connection with the activities of the 11th international Biennale in Cairo 2008

 

The artist took water out of the Nile and carried it indoors to the art-gallery. The water was taken not only for showing and exposing purpose, but as a gift for all visitors. 
The words CARRY ME HOME are inviting and asking you to take a ladle, fill an empty glass with water from the barrel, and bring the water home. For sure, "Home" is somewhere outside the gallery. But what could be intended? The home of the water, the river? Or your own home where you want to bring the water? Anyway, it is the audience's choice, what to do and where to take the water. You have to think about it. By doing so, you and all the other visitors of the art-gallery are directly asked to take care of the water-gift of the Nile. You are participating in this big „water-drawing“ already by taking notice and of course – if you get into action - by bringing it „Home“.

 

7 DAYS OF THE NILE: 1 RIVER – 7 TIMES – 7 WATERS


Performance - Installation
By Joachim Eckl

 

Cairo 2008
Photos Rasha Ragab

 

7 Drinking-water-bottles filled with Nile-water, 7 clay-vases, 7 Photographs
Text: NOT FOR DRINKING – BUT FOR THINKING

 

7 days in a row, the artist went to the Nile-river to act out the same procedure. He went there to collect water from the river and brought an empty drinking-water-bottle, which he had emptied and drunk out before each time. He went there at noon every day- at the same time of the day, to the same place on the river, but each time he filled his bottle and took the water out of the stream he found himself confronted with different water. „You cannot go in the same river twice.“ (...) On one hand he is playing with the formal model of a hieroglyphic symbol for water in his presentation of „7 Days of the River”: This symbol expresses the spirit of water as transparent drop above a vessel. On the other hand the artist reminds us of the current aspect of the actual water-quality of the Nile by adding following words to his piece: NOT FOR DRINKING – BUT FOR THINKING

 

ACTING AND REFLECTING – TIME


Video-Installation by Joachim Eckl

Luxor/Vienna/Cairo, 2008

In collaboration with Rasha Ragab/Performances, Werner Fritsch/Camera Water-Video and concept for Light-Performance/Faust Sonnengesang, Kurt Hennrich/ Video-Screenwork-1z1 Vienna 
2 videos, 1 clock, Black Box

 

This Installation is created to experience time. Light, water, motion and essential aspects of the history of mankind are present in this work. Two videos are shown parallel and in extreme slow motion in a black room. They are projected above a clock showing our time. In one video a man and woman in traditional Egyptian clothes are acting together on one boat, floating in the middle of the Nile. They are drawing and collecting water of the river. Both seem to be linked and separate – by themselves - at the same time. The rhythms of their movements meet and loose each other again in time. The second video is showing an Egyptian woman walking along a wall with hieroglyphs in the grave of Horeb. She is looking like a goddess floating in sunlight. Her appearance is reflecting the light of the now on the knowledge of the past. Time seems to be expanded and stretched from ancient past to the now in this archaic and painting-like flow of pictures.

 

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