Studio Orta

For the 9th Shanghai Biennale, Lucy + Jorge Orta are commissioned to make three large-scale interventions for the Museum of Contemporary Art: OrtaWater Purification Factory, Antarctica World Passport Delivery Village and Nexus Architecture.

OrtaWater Purification Factory is a fully functioning, mobile water purification system. The work will draw from Shanghai’s Huang Pu River and will pump water up 20 metres into the museum’s third floor. It will be purified in a bamboo ‘factory’ and then clean drinking water snaked around the museum for the visitors to taste, enjoy and take away in a specially designed OrtaWater bottle.

Due to the effects of global warming it is estimated that sea levels will raise 0.5 to 1.4 metres over the next 100 years. Antarctica World Passport Delivery Village is comprised of a collection of small huts made from reclaimed materials, erected on stilts and interconnected by a raised platform of bamboo. A Metisse Flag will indicate the delivery bureau, where a passport officer will hand out the third edition of the Antarctica World Passport. Printed in Chinese for the occasion of the Shanghai Biennale, tens of thousands of passports will be distributed to museum visitors. New members will be welcomed into the Antarctica world community based on the founding principles of the Antarctic Treaty.

Nexus Architecture is both an installation and a performance. These ephemeral interventions draw performers and passers-by alike into choreographed scenarios, later documented in photographs and on film. By climbing into specially conceived suits and zippering the Nexus, participants challenge the premise of interdependence, asserting chosen community as a means to personal liberation.