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At the First Bienal del Agua, Demetrio Paparoni Makes Water Political

Paparoni's biennial rejects romantic invocations of water in favor of a politically charged examination of scarcity, migration, environmental disaster and social responsibility.

The inaugural Bienal del Agua recently opened in multiple venues in Cascais, a picturesque harbor town on the outskirts of Lisbon. The biennial’s main exhibition is on view at the Estoril Congress Center, with additional shows at NOVA University, the Paula Rego Museum, Casino Estoril, the Cascais Cultural Center, the Cascais Seafront Promenade and the town’s urban art circuit. Together, the presentations create an exhibition route in continuous dialogue with contemporary art, architecture, heritage, the ocean landscape and public space.

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Running through September 6, “The Traces of Water” is notable for having been neither produced nor organized by a local institution nor born of a government initiative, as many biennials are when they seek to activate tourism or stimulate culture-led local development. Instead, it was launched and supported by OliverWater, a circular water brand, in collaboration with public institutions and private stakeholders. Its goal is to create a space for reflection on the use of water and encourage more responsible management of natural resources.

This is not the brand’s only initiative in this vein. OliverWater organizes its social mission under the term “Cruzada Humanitaria,” or “Humanitarian Crusade,” around four conceptual pillars: love, equity, nature and art. One of its most concrete initiatives is a “One for One” donation program developed with Glacier Waters International, through which every liter of water sold prompts the donation of an equivalent quantity to help people gain access to drinking water.

Water has been a recurring theme at biennials in recent years, often treated as a body that carries its own memories and encompasses both the transitional nature of human history and the long-term cyclicality of natural time. This has led to interpretations that connect to ancestral and Indigenous wisdom, as well as to colonial histories and the ecological crisis.

For this Bienal, Demetrio Paparoni, the curator of the main exhibition, wanted to foreground water’s political dimension and the social responsibilities it implies, bringing together works that directly document, reflect on or suggest the different crises of our time, many of which unfold around water. “Here, the issue is necessity,” Paparoni tells Observer. “I cannot come here and speak to you only about water in mythic or religious systems. There are people who genuinely have nothing to drink.”

The result is an expansive international exhibition shaped by Paparoni’s........

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