Caterpillastrophy:Wash the Water, April 2024
Installation/Performance by Straw Pipes
LeLe Dai Huter MFA Thesis
205 Hudson Gallery, Tribeca, NY
Documented by Joey Gonnella and Nate Dorr.
Description:
The centerpiece of Caterpillastrophy: Wash the Water was an 18-foot-long gutter that traverses the length of the gallery on an extensive set of found and fabricated legs—a visual approximation of a caterpillar, designed primarily for the movement and purification of the waters of the Hudson. Recruiting the audience and an adhoc collective of multidisciplinary participants, Straw Pipes slowly brought the water from the Hudson across three city blocks to our set of water-based inventions, including (most prominently) the water filtration caterpillar. The water was then moved from the Hudson first with a pulley and bucket temporarily installed along the river bulkhead. It was collected in 5 gallon containers on casters and moved little by little across the city sidewalks. Then, beginning just shy of the gallery entrance, the waters we collected from the Hudson, were poured from their 5-gallon containers into a prominent filtration-system made of salvaged materials. From there the water was trickle down our caterpillar pipe and then slowly make its way through the rest of the gallery, transforming as it goes.
The water was performing as visual artist, musician, and protagonist as it interacts with our reverse-engineered inventions—machines made of spools, bicycle wheels, containers, ropes, pipes, and various devices sourced from thrift stores or of the trash. In many cases the machines were made from objects we found on the waterfronts themselves—reuniting the waters that adjoined and enveloped them before this project began. By the time the water finishes its journey it will have moved through various states—from the dense polluted waters we collected directly from the Hudson, to cleaner debris-free water, to vapor, and then into a pure distilled water. It ironically reached this state only by moving through devices made of repurposed river refuse. The water has legs, it moves, it transforms. And the rest of the collective and audience move with it.
The water that makes it to the final stages of this process was served in tiny tea cups - clean, clear, free of toxins, and (if our inventions work as planned) drinkable - a marked contrast from the initial gallons of murky, polluted water we initially pulled from the Hudson. Performing alongside the water, Straw Pipes served as hosts, researchers, spiritual guides, and bartenders.