23 December 2008 - 1 March 2009

The Water Hole

Primary Education Resouce

GERDA STEINER & JÖRG LENZLINGER

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The Water Hole Primary Education Resource addresses learning focus statements from all three strands of the Victorian Essential Learning Standards. These include:

Physical, Personal and Social LearningCivics and Citizenships – Community Engagement

Discipline Based LearningEnglish - Reading, Writing, Speaking & ListeningScience - Knowledge and UnderstandingThe Arts - Creating and Making, Exploring and RespondingHumanities - Knowledge and Understanding

Interdisciplinary LearningThinking Processes – Creativity

Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger The Water Hole, 2008

InstallationCourtesy the artists

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Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger The Water Hole, 2008

InstallationCourtesy the artists

The Water Hole – a guide for looking and thinking.

Entrance Sign –

The photograph of a sign at the entrance to the gallery helps to cue the visitors thinking about what they will see. The original sign is at the entrance to Kenting National Park. Kenting National Park is a national park located in Hengchun Penninsula of Pingtung County, Taiwan. The sign reminds us of our relationship to nature, and where we presently situate ourselves in relation to it.

The Silver Tunnel –

The mouth of the silver tunnel, flanked by dry, brittle branches, ingests visitors into the gallery space. The choice of materials is critical to Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger’s The Water Hole. As visitors move through the space the breeze that is created through their movement rustles the silver material of the tunnel creating a sound like that of wind through the trees. This helps convey a shift in temporal space taking visitors on a journey, a time warp or into a space hole to a future or past place. The silver material is space like, semitransparent and very similar to insulation.

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The Water Hole –

Traditionally, a waterhole is considered to be a meeting place, a place of sustenance, and a kind of oasis. But the waterhole can also be a dangerous place – who knows exactly what is lurking aroung there? In ACCA’s main gallery, Gerda Steiner and Jörg Lenzlinger have created a waterhole from the detritus of the city. Steiner and Lenzlinger worked in Australia ten years ago and therefore are well aware that Australia is in its worst drought and that water has become increasingly a precious and rare substance. Steiner and Lenzlinger are also concerned with creating a work that will attract the rain. This installation demonstrates a reverse reticula-tion system to channel water back into the waterholes. Check out the bathtub, toilet and plastic water bottles.

When Steiner and Lenzlinger came back to Australia and to Melbourne they were reminded how we use fresh clean water to wash dishes, flush the toilet or to bath in. These are our waterholes that predominantly we still take for granted. The artists took a journey to the source of Melbourne’s water in the Yarra Valley. It is this distance and proximity to nature, to sources of energy and growth and our lack of awareness or connection to nature that is at the heart of their work. For example; some of us buy water in plastic bottles!

The Water Hole is seen to be on life support. A drip suspended high in the ceiling hydrates the clay hole in which a small pool of water lies. Consider environmental issues such as polar bears and melting icecaps through global warming – what can we do to save our environment? Past lives and possible futures coexist – bones, dinosaur-like eggs in a giant nest. Mobile phones have spawned spiders. Modification, adaptation, continual change, decay and renewal are key ideas in The Water Hole.

Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger The Water Hole, 2008

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The Crystal Garden –

Growth of brightly coloured crystals over the duration of the exhibition is affected by the internal climate of the gallery. Made from common farming fertiliser, the active ingredient is urea – nitrate that is the building block of new life. Urea was the first synthetically produced organic substance. It’s widely used in lot of products such as cosmetics and plastic and is a growth hormone. Here it works magic, becoming something beautiful and fragile but highly artificial at the same time. Think of the urea being fed to animals and liberally applied to crops. Don’t forget that urea is a natural human/animal by-product!

Commonly the most attractive and enticing elements in Steiner and Lenzlinger’s installations are the artificial flowers and assemblages. Creating an environment that alternates between attractive and repulsive is critical to their work, establishing our relationship to the environment, what we like and dislike, feel safe with or fear. Cheap two-dollar materials entice the viewer while old, dirty and discarded buckets and pipes are also given new life. Also, of interest to us is the lake of glistening motor oil.

Observation Room -

Looking out and being seen creates the awareness of the fact that like an animal in the zoo you are being observed. Peer through the binoculars. What can be seen? What can’t be seen? Here, as throughout the exhibition, the water in the drinking fountain signals an opportunity to stop for a moment, to refresh, and to enjoy some of this rare resource.

Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger The Water Hole, 2008

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Moon Garden -

This is a video installation of a work Steiner and Lenzlinger made in a silver mine in France. The work is projected from the four corners of the gallery space and surrounds the viewer. The viewer rests on the waterbed located in the centre whilst the video projections appear like a moving tessellation, consistently mutating and creating abstract forms.

In the centre of the room sits a waterbed. Contained by the plastic artificial mattress is an abundance of water, always wet, dark and cool. This is the opposite of our arid environment – the big dry land. Lying on the waterbed visitors feel the water and its coolness.

Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger The Water Hole, 2008

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The Therapy Room –

Beds are an important element in Steiner and Lenzlinger’s work – a place of dreams, and of rest. In this room, a number of opportunities to connect with physical and natural forces await the visitor. Steiner and Lenzlinger encourage visitors to focus on feeling rather than on the more conventional and safer distance of observation.

Above one of the white beds hangs a single iron meteorite. This meteorite is a fragment retrieved from Henbury Craters 136 km south of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. Twelve craters have been recognised with the largest, an elliptical crater, measuring approximately 180m by 140m. The craters are approximately 3000 years old. They were formed when a large iron meteorite broke up in flight with several large masses forming craters on impact. Several tons of fragments have been recovered. This specimen is a small piece that broke off a larger mass while in flight, rather than on impact. The meteorite is approximately 4.5 billion years old and originally was part of the iron core of a large asteroid in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. This parent asteroid would have been ripped apart by a collision with another large asteroid which would have inturn disturbed its orbit from the asteroid belt. Approximately 3000 years ago this larger fragment crossed the Earth’s path and they collided. The meteorite is composed of approximately 93% iron and 7% nickel and weighs 33kg. Iron meteorites are quite rare representing only 5% of all meteorite falls.

Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger The Water Hole, 2008

InstallationCourtesy the artists

Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger The Water Hole, 2008

InstallationCourtesy the artists

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Lift up -

This photographic project traces Steiner and Lenzlinger’s journey together ten years earlier on a cargo ship from Europe to Australia via India, Nepal and Indonesia. In the photographs we see the relationship between people, an expression of trust and exuberance that is celebrated. Creating a simple but memorable moment.

Tears -

At the far end of the gallery, located behind a wall and in discrete space is a tear desalination plant, an end note that connects human beings back to nature – after all aren’t we all more than 60% water? Looking again at people looking via a Closed Circuit Television Camera – we can ponder our relationship to the world and to the people around us.

Throughout the exhibition there is the interplay of macro and micro scale, distance and proximity reinforcing the importance of and need for balance and symmetry in our world.

Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger The Water Hole, 2008

InstallationCourtesy the artists

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Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger The Water Hole, 2008

InstallationCourtesy the artists

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n Who are Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger?

Swiss artists, Gerda Steiner and Jörg Lenzlinger have been working together for 10 years.

During that time they have created environments of wonder, beauty and fantasy out of discarded and second hand materials. Steiner and Lenzlinger have worked all over the world and their artworks explore ideas about the world and our environment. They respond directly to the space in which they work, making beautiful and magical landscapes that remind us all of our ability to dream and to wonder.

For ACCA, Steiner and Lenzlinger have created The Water Hole, a wonderful journey into a strange land where little miracles combine with ecological investigations to help us contemplate our changing relationship to the landscape.

TEACHING AND LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Activity 1 - Literacy & The Water Hole

The purpose of this activity is to:•Introduce students to the concept of a waterhole•Read aloud from children’s texts that use the idea of a water hole•Provide entry points for the students to engage with contemporary art

As a group, students will read texts such as The Waterhole by Graeme Base and Aboriginal Dreamtime stories. The characters, setting and narrative of each text will be unpacked.

Whilst reading the stories, students could respond to the text by asking questions about:•The types of characters and relationships between them•The structure and direction of the narrative•Narrative alternatives if the student was writing the text.

After reading the stories, students could write their own story based upon Steiner and Lenzlinger’s The Water Hole.

Creation StoryAunty Beryl Carmichael

“Guthi-guthi went back up into the sky and he called out once more, "Weowie", but once again Weowie didn't respond. So Guthi-guthi came down with a roar like thunder and banged on the mountain and the mountain split open. Weowie the water serpent came out. And where the water serpent travelled he made waterholes and streams and depressions in the land.”

The WaterholeGraeme Base

“Down to the secret waterhole the animals all come. As seasons bring forth drought and flood, they gather there as one. United in their common need, their numbers swell to ten. But hidden deep amongst the trees lie ten times that again!”

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Activity 2 - Science & The Water HoleScientific EnquiryUrea – The Crystal Garden

Previously, Lenzlinger worked in a science museum, setting up displays and installation and this is when he came across urea and its ability to be crystalised. The experience of creating crystalline landscapes has informed his understanding of urea (fertilizer). Urea is used around the world in huge quantities. Urea is the first organic material that chemist could make artificially. In 1830 a German chemist created synthetic urea. At this point scientists thought they could make life synthetically. The human body produces urea - it is in our sweat, blood and urine.

Urea is used in The Water Hole. The crystallization that occurs is the result of a process of saturating the water with urea. The urea grows naturally depending upon the level of hydration that occurs.

Steiner and Lenzlinger recycle the crystals or urea after they have finished each show. Urea has a memory and each time it is used, the urea learns and draws upon forms that it has created previously. Colour is a strong element in the urea. Food colours are added to exagerate the hyper real (artificial) quality of the crystaline landscapes. As Lenzlinger has remarked in reference to the colourful crystal forms, “Poison can be very beautiful”.

Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger The Water Hole, 2008

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Activity 3 – The Humanities & The Water Hole

Ideas about the environment and water abound in The Water Hole installation.

Water

1.What is water made up of?2.Where does water come from?3.How do we store water for domestic use?4.Who is responsible for looking after water?5.Why is water important to sustaining life?6.When can I save water and how can I save more water? Design your own checklist for saving water around your own house.

Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger The Water Hole, 2008

InstallationCourtesy the artists

Activity 4 - Visual Arts & The Water Hole

Creating & MakingBuild a diorama of a water hole using found materials in a structure such as a cardboard shoebox.

Collect a range of objects (not too heavy) that can be attached to string and suspended from the structure to create a mobile.

Exploring & RespondingDiscuss what can be defined as contemporary art.What are the similarities and differences between historical and contemporary artists?What is installation art?

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Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger The Water Hole, 2008

InstallationCourtesy the artists

Activity 5 - Music & The Water Hole

Create a soundscape inspired by The Water Hole. Create sounds using found materials. Arrange the sounds to create a composition. Record the composition using a free sound-editing program such as Audacity. Burn the recorded composition to CD and create cover art.

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Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger The Water Hole, 2008

InstallationCourtesy the artists

ACTIVITY 6 – Thinking Processes & The Water Hole

Thinking Routines: Tools for Making Thinking Visible

Project Zero researchers developed more than 30 thinking routines in collaboration with K–12 teachers. Below are a few popular routines used by teachers. See www.pz.harvard.edu/vt/ for more information, including actual classroom examples, on these routines and many others.

HeadlinesThis routine uses newspaper headlines to capture the essence of the artwork. It works especially well at the end of a class discussion in which students have explored a topic and gathered new information and opinions.

Ask students: If you were to write a headline for this artwork right now that captured the most important aspect to remember, what would that headline be?If you ask the first question at the beginning of the discussion, follow up with these questions:How would your headline change after today's discussion? How does it differ from what you would have said yesterday?

Connect-Extend-ChallengeThis routine helps students make connections. Ask students these three questions:How are the ideas and information presented connected to what you know and have studied?What new ideas extended or pushed your thinking in new directions?What is still challenging or confusing for you? What questions, wonderings, or puzzles do you have?

See-Think-WonderThis routine helps stimulate curiosity and sets the stage for inquiry. Ask students to make observations about an object, image, or event, answering these three questions:What do you see?What do you think about that?What does it make you wonder?

Compass PointsThis routine helps students explore various facets of a proposition or idea (such as a school dress code) before taking a stand on it. Ask students these four questions, recording their responses as the directions of a compass to provide a visual anchor.

E = Excited. What excites you about this artwork?W = Worrisome. What do you find worrisome about this artwork?N = Need to Know. What else do you need to know or find out about this artwork?What additional information would help you?S = Stance, Steps, or Suggestions for Moving Forward.

What is your current understanding of the artwork? What steps might you take to increase your understanding of the ideas in this artwork?

Source: Activities are adapted from Project Zero's Visible Thinking Web site (www.pz.harvard.edu/vt) created by David Perkins, Ron Ritchhart, Patricia Palmer, and Shari Tishman. © 2007 by the president and fellows of Harvard College on behalf of Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

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Activity 8 - Drama & The Water Hole

Write and direct a performance based upon the installation of The Water Hole at ACCA. Create characters that would live or work near the waterhole and design costumes that characters will wear when performing the play The Water Hole.

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UNIT RESOURCES

Gerda Steiner and Jorg Lenzlinger’s websitehttp://www.steinerlenzlinger.ch/

Dreamtime Waterhole Storieshttp://www.dreamtime.net.au/dreaming/storylist.htm

ASSESSMENT

The Victorian Essential Learning Standards supports a combination of assessment practices:•Assessment for learning (formative) occurs when teachers use inferences about student progress to inform their teaching•Assessment as learning (ongoing) occurs when students reflect on and monitor their progress to inform their future learning goals•Assessment of learning (summative) occurs when teachers use evidence of student learning to make judgments on student achievement against goals and standards.

Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger The Water Hole, 2008

InstallationCourtesy the artists