ANCHORAGE, ALASKA – June 14, 2021 – Opening Friday, June 17, is Water Moves Life, a site-specific art installation by artists Nicholas Galanin and Merritt Johnson that explores the common forces of climate change and inequality, linking them to land, water, and human potential.

The project includes outdoor installations of bronze forms which replicate mass-produced plastic jugs that the artists see as both mundane products of global capitalism and tools for survival amidst climate change. By casting such utilitarian objects in bronze, a material traditionally used to make large-scale monuments, the artists hope to prompt viewers to consider the precariousness of life and the legacy now being created for future generations.

Water Moves Life also employs layers of sound juxtaposing flowing water with man-made sounds of surveillance and control to emphasize the ways humans have disconnected themselves from the laws of the natural world. They serve as a reminder that all life follows water: it flows freely and cannot be easily contained.

The Anchorage Museum lawn installations will be on view through Spring 2023 with additional installations at Cuddy Family Park in midtown Anchorage and Alaska State Museum in Juneau displayed through this fall.

Water Moves Life is part of a broad creative outreach project developed as a series of temporary installations highlighting work of contemporary Alaska artists and featuring durable artworks placed in public spaces in Alaska that are accessible and populated.

This project is made possible with support from the Visionary Initiatives in Art (VIA) Fund and the National Endowment for the Arts.