Anthony Acciavatti | Somatic Collaborative

GROUNDWATER EARTH: THE HIDDEN FRONT LINE OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Hydrologists today estimate that nearly half of the global population drinks groundwater daily, and that over half of the world’s irrigated crops rely on it. Drawing on lessons learned from qanats and stepwells across Asia and Venice’s system of cisterns, this design research foregrounds aquifers as a shared commons that can collectively shape farms and cities. If aquifers are not engaged as a common resource, then we will see the same effects of millions of privately owned, atomistic technologies used to bleed the earth dry.

ABOUT ANTHONY ACCIAVATTI

Anthony Acciavatti is a founding partner of Somatic Collaborative. He works at the intersection of architecture, landscape, and the histories of science and technology. He explores the hidden underworlds of the earth and how they shape the way we live in cities and cultivate landscapes. Acciavatti is the author of the award-winning book, Ganges Water Machine, which is based on nearly a decade of crisscrossing the world’s most densely populated river basin by foot, boat, and car. His work on the Ganges is in the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He has exhibited at the Milan Triennial, the Wellcome Collection in London, Yale University, Rhode Island School of Design, as well as biennials in Venice, Seoul, Rotterdam, and Quito. A founding partner of Somatic Collaborative, Acciavatti currently leads Ganges Field Lab at Collaborative Earth and is the inaugural Diana Balmori Associate Professor at Yale University.