Clearer than water
Sapeira
Period: 2025-present
At Clearer than water, Through mediation and collective creation, the Sapeira community reactivates the unwritten rules that for generations have sustained communal water management. In this pre-Pyrenean village, water supply has historically been guaranteed through shared work, oral agreements and a deep relationship with the territory, which has allowed the maintenance of springs, pipes and orchards as living and cooperative spaces.
This system, based on trust and mutual support, is now under stress due to persistent drought, depopulation and the application of new administrative regulations that conflict with the traditional governance of the resource. In the face of these changes, the project seeks to reinforce the knowledge and practices that have made the commons possible, while exploring how they can dialogue with current ecological and social challenges.
The process - facilitated by the mediator and promoted by the Usnea RP collective - combines workshops, tours, conversations and artistic practices that create spaces for listening and shared imagination. The aim is to identify what needs to be cared for, transformed or recovered in relation to water in order to strengthen the community fabric and imagine sustainable and friendly futures.
The final result will take the form of an artistic work born of collective desire, capable of giving visibility and continuity to this process of political imagination. Clearer than water The aim is to turn Sapeira into a space for research on how communal knowledge and ways of doing things can inspire new ways of governing resources and inhabiting the territory in times of climate change.
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Exploring new and old forms of community water governance.
At Clearer than water, the community of Sapeira reactivates, through mediation and collective creation, the unwritten rules that have sustained communal water management for generations. In this pre-Pyrenean village, water supply has historically been guaranteed through shared work, oral agreements and a profound relationship with the territory, which has allowed the maintenance of springs, pipelines and vegetable gardens as spaces for life and cooperation.
This system, based on trust and mutual sustenance, is today under stress due to persistent drought, depopulation and the application of new administrative regulations that conflict with the traditional governance of the resource. In the face of these changes, the project seeks to reinforce the knowledge and practices that have made the commons possible, exploring how they can be brought into dialogue with current ecological and social challenges.
The process - facilitated by the mediator and promoted by the Usnea RP collective - combines workshops, tours, conversations and artistic practices that open up spaces for listening and shared imagination. The aim is to identify what needs to be cared for, transformed or recovered in relation to water in order to strengthen the community fabric and imagine sustainable and friendly futures.
The final result will take the form of an artistic commission arising from collective desire, capable of giving visibility and continuity to this process of political imagination. Clearer than water thus aspires to turn Sapeira into a space for testing how communal knowledge and ways of doing things can inspire new ways of governing resources and inhabiting the territory in times of climate change.
