The “State of Water” photo gallery will be exhibited on the second floor of the Skyline College library from Jan. 28-March 15, and will include a community educational panel plus a community art and poetry workshop to encourage discussion of how to best use and conserve the world’s most valuable resource. 

Skyline College Librarian Pia Walawalkar said this exhibit is supposed to provide students with the understanding that water is not to be taken for granted.

“‘The State of Water’ exhibit talks about water as a resource,” Walawalkar said. “That it’s obviously being used in so many different ways, but it’s also something that we are not taking very good care of.”

As part of Skyline College’s Critical Global Citizenship Education project, this will be the first time the photo gallery has been exhibited at the college.

“What we are doing is we are tying it with the idea that water is global and it connects people, as opposed to dividing people,” Walawalkar said.

According to ExhibitsUSA, the “State of Water” exhibit was created by photographer Brad Temkin, and uses photos from his 2019 photobook of the same name. The exhibit contains 34 photographic prints, three videos, and an infographic panel that shows how water is carried from the environment to our faucets.

Walawalkar said that she hopes the pictures, some being very large, roughly 40 inches wide, entice students to come in.

“I’m hoping that the photos make people a little more curious because anything visual is going to draw more people in than a bunch of words,” Walawalkar said.

 The exhibit is curated by the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, but can be rented out by colleges for campus exhibitions such as this one.

As part of the exhibition itinerary, on Thursday, March 5, there will be a panel discussion from 12:30 p.m.-1:30 p.m. in the library with three panelists that specialize in water conservation. One will be a representative from the Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency. The second speaker will be from the Filoli Gardens conservatory in Redwood City. The third speaker will be from the Association of Ramaytush Ohlone.

During the panel discussion, the panelists will speak on the topic of how people in the Bay Area use and waste water, plus the best ways to conserve it.

 Similarly, Walawalkar explained that the students who are also helping out with this project will hold an interactive exhibit of their own. The interactive project will be a map of the world that will tour the campus and allow students to paste sticky notes describing how water is used from where they come from.

For example, Walawalkar spoke about her experiences with water growing up in Mumbai, India, which were vastly different than they are now in the United States. She described how her family had only half an hour in the morning to collect as much as they could in buckets, hoping they had collected enough for two or three days because they didn’t know when they would be able to collect again. A way of life very different from how kids grow up in the United States, where water is actively flowing 24/7 through our pipes.

Walawalkar added that this difference is one of the main reasons why she encourages students to visit the exhibit, and have a bit of self reflection to the privilege Americans have regarding water access. 

Next on the itinerary, on Wednesday, March 11, there will be a community art and poetry workshop with Aileen Cassinetto, who is a 2021 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. During this workshop, students will have the chance to create art intertwined with themes of water use and conservation.

Walawalkar mentioned that, similar to the pictures, she hopes that students will have fun creating art while simultaneously learning about water conservation. 

Although the exhibit will be up and ready by Wednesday, Jan. 28, the library will host a welcome reception on Monday, Feb. 2 from 2 p.m.-3:30 p.m. and Tuesday, Feb. 3 from 9 a.m.-10:30 a.m. to celebrate the arrival of the exhibit.