At Prospects, the artist Jana Romanova (1984) is showing a series of portraits. However, these are not photographs of faces, but together form a record of how tap water has been used. Each of the works from the series Water Portraits (2023) is a photograph of a lump of ice. It all starts with a litre of frozen tap water that Romanova brings over to a volunteer, asking them to do something with it. This person will then use the water to, for instance, wash dishes or cook pasta. The remaining water is picked up by Romanova and refrozen. The artist photographs the used water, records the name of the user, and describes what it has been used for. Romanova subsequently delivers the remaining frozen water to a new volunteer, repeating the process until nothing is left of the original litre. Although the ‘participants’ do not know each other, they do know what the people before them did with the water. In this way, almost a hundred people each found a unique way of using the water. Romanova therefore jokingly refers to herself as ‘curator of water use’, and applies her knowledge of social game design to the practical execution of this experiment.
Water Portraits turns tap water into something extremely personal. But it is not Romanova’s intention to pass judgement on what the volunteers use it for. Through her photographs of the lumps of ice, however, she allows space for feelings we usually do not associate with something as matter of course as water use.
Text: Jorne Vriens
Translation from Dutch to English: Marie Louise Schoondergang