Behaviour
Museum of Water, Botanic Gardens, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
FOUR STARS
On paper, it sounds simple - even somewhat naive. A collection of water. Bottled and donated by all kinds of people: young and old, from across the UK and beyond and now in Glasgow. But as you peer into the display cases - set up in the glass oasis of the Kibble Palace as part of the Arches Behaviour season - the complexity and beauty of what artist Amy Sharrocks is divining in her installation filters through. Be it crystal clear or murky, barely visible in a tiny vial or enshrined in an ornate container, each drop of water is a memory incarnate. Little labels tell the accompanying stories. For some, it's a matter of faith with Holy Water collected from pilgrimages and now made into public witness. For others, it's a matter of tears. Tears of joy (on being accepted for ordination training) are captured in a humorous beer bottle labelled The Rev James - depicted as a jolly, convivial soul. Elsewhere, however, there are tears that fell because of miscarriage and loss. "The evaporation of grief" - first gathered on the death of a partner in 2009 - is a poignant reminder of the physical and metaphysical transience that surrounds us.
Bottle after bottle, the everyday forms and functions of water - most of which we take for granted - overlap into a visual meditation on time and life itself. An ice core collected from Antartica is 129,000 years old. Catrin's melted snowman dates from 2013. Both of them water, like some 80% of our own bodies, and the fluids - be it spit, sweat or urine - that we produce. It's a fascinating project, by turns whimsical and deeply moving. It ends today.
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