The Water Harvest, 2015

Made collaboratively by artists Jasmine Targett and Debbie Symons

Antique Chemistry Hand Blown Glass Bottles, Rain and Grey Water on Light box and ledge surrounding room.

The Water Harvest is a socially engaged, installation-based artwork that celebrates the everyday actions of Melburnians collecting rainwater and greywater in response to drought and reduced rainfall.

The artists invited water-conscious Victorians to contribute water samples collected from their homes and workplaces. Each contribution was documented with the participant’s name and location, with the geographic origin of the water calculated and etched directly onto the glass vessel.

Presented as an illuminated installation, the bottles function as markers within a distributed map—tracing a collective shift in public awareness towards water conservation and sustainable resource management in Melbourne.

The work explores the potential for a community-driven, human-made catchment system, suggesting how individual actions can collectively contribute to broader urban resilience. Through its spatial relationships, the installation visualises the intersection of natural and constructed systems, proposing a collaborative “super ecology” between human intervention and environmental processes.

At the conclusion of the exhibition, bottles were returned to their contributors, acknowledging each participant’s role in supporting a more sustainable future for Melbourne’s water systems.

The Water Harvest was exhibited as part of The Catchments Project during the inaugural studio-based artist-in-residence program at Creative Spaces Carlton Connect Studio, LAB14.