File under quick rant.
I’m really happy that some well-intentioned artists are working on the theme of water. Without clean, potable water, we’re screwed. In my opinion most creatures on this planet are screwed right now. Since less than one percent of the planets water is drinkable and industrial society is hell bent on polluting it through fracking, drilling, dumping wastes and agricultural “-cides” and using it to irrigate desert cities and mono-cropped fields the world over.
I recently came across The Water Tank Project and I really hope this project reaches a goal of raising awareness on the immense dangers to a main source of life on this planet, water.

Since I am a person that like to think and be critical there are two superficial problems that stared me in the face when I started to look at it.

For the first time in history, New York City’s iconic water tanks will be used as canvases for public art.

WRONG, water tanks have been canvases for public art ever since graffiti artists decided to paint on them, for the last couple decades. While a UFO, Pac Man, or someone’s name in acrylic on the outside of a water tanks does not scream “water is life” I am totally appreciative of those autonomous beings that have taken the effort to decorate them.

Second, no matter how much this raises thru kickstarter it is not the first publicly funded art project in NY, tax dollars fund art projects all the time, unfortunately with less and less funding since our collective wealth is channeled to tax breaks, freedom towers, sports stadiums, and luxury condos (so the wealthy can, eventually, look at the “publicly” funded art project, from their penthouse terrace)
It will be an art project funded by the “public’, with a portion of its “earnings” extracted by Amazon/Kickstarter, featuring artists and curators that could all pay for it themselves, by donating a small percentage of their yearly income.
I prefaced this as a rant, so I don’t necessarily have anything conclusive to say..
thanks