Cathy's Art Diary

Interesting outdoor exhibition at Canary Wharf looking at the importance of clean water to women’s health focusing on Malawi. The display, sponsored by WaterAid and the Wimbledon Foundation, consists of tender photographs by Laura El-Tantawy exposing the emotional toll of pregnancy, childbirth and childcare without clean water and decent toilets, each with a short commentary. I think this display is doing the rounds and has already been next to Tower Bridge last year.

Clever exhibition in the public space at London Bridge pier organised by Water Aid looking at how the Victorians solved water, sewage and hygiene problems and comparing this to the current situation in developing countries and the great difference small changes to improve water quality can bring them. I do like this new trend to put an exhibition in the street and this one was particularly nicely designed with each information board being edged in plumping pipes and values. The Victorian side was shown via photographs by Thomas Ball showing some of the great Victorian projects to improve water quality. I loved the picture of the majestic Crossness Pumping Station as it is very close to where I live. The photos were supported by people’s memories of water related issues (toilets etc) collected by Water Aid as part of the Big History Project. Some of these were fascinating and frightening recent such as a road in Cambridge in the 1960s which was still using a well contaminat...