Work · Deep
Deep
2008, 1 of 3, color pencil on paper, 19 x 24 inches
Deep is a time-based series about water rights and scarcity. Read in order, the three drawings show the same ground at three moments, the water table lower in each one, pumped down by everyone who claims a share of it. In 2008 the idea that water could run short, and that it could be owned, bought and sold like oil, was only beginning to reach the public.
The drawings came before the next wave of demand: before data centers began drawing millions of gallons a day to cool the machines. Seen now, the sequence reads less as a warning than as an early record of a line that has kept falling.
Collection: The Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection, Palm Beach, Florida
Series: Deep