The Making of PIPES

With Eugenia Lim, Jonni Te Waa, Lucien Alperstein

Facilitated by Rachael Kiang

How can art be co-created with a plumber, a microbiologist and an artist?

Hear from the creative team behind the new commission for Gut Waters PIPES about making art with non-art skills and knowledge. A robust discussion that will inspire working across disciplines in creative and other settings.

PIPES is a fountain and site-specific sculpture commissioned for Gut Waters. It is the result of a collaboration between artist Eugenia Lim and Western Sydney based plumber and gas fitter Jonni Te Waa. PIPES explores connections between our body’s ‘internal plumbing’ and the sanitation systems that shape our cities and rivers. It takes a playful, ecological and relational approach to bodies and the systems they are enmeshed within.

The fountain contains a custom kombucha brewed from Bankstown drinking water; river water collected from Bankstown-area Georges, Duck and Cooks rivers; and water sourced from Manly beach, near the North Head Treatment Plant, where Bankstown’s wastewater flows into the Pacific ocean. As Uncle Chris Tobin shares, “Badhu (water) runs through us all, so it connects our ancestors to now. Tracing the flow and cycle of living waters through the bodies and metabolisms of Bankstown, the liquid that flows through PIPES merges ancient and contemporary bodies of living water.

PIPES is created in dialogue with the history and ecology of Dharug lands and waters, and contemporary Bankstown as a vibrant hub of Asian, SWANA-region and intercultural exchange.

Plumber and sculptural collaborator: Jonni Te Waa

Dharug custodian and cultural advisor: Uncle Chris Tobin

Microbiologist and kombucha brewer: Lucien Alperstein

3D modelling: Alan Damen

Water collectors: Leanne Niblock, Lucien Alperstein, Vanessa Bartlett and Paul and Faith Byrne