Projects
Ten Thousand Steps
Exploring Our Footprint and Her Long Walk for Water
Can you imagine walking four to eight miles every morning carrying forty-eight pounds of water? Ten Thousand Steps raises awareness of global water issues through the topic of access, which currently affects almost eight hundred million people. This project illustrates the average of four miles walked daily (by women and girls carrying a forty-eight pound, six-gallon container of water) using footprints that have been die-cut from colored, cover-weight paper. The footprints are installed walking up and down the walls.
Ten Thousand Steps can involve students directly in collaboration, public-engagement, research, critical thinking, design, art making, exhibition curating, as well as project production, installation, and marketing. Issues of gender, class, environmental degradation, and water privatization can be addressed through dialogue and additional academic programming.
"...I gave the final for the first year seminar I am teaching. The assignment was to give a presentation about the five most important things you learned this semester... I was very pleased to hear that a number of students spent a good part of their talk on the water exhibit. It had an impact on them that I didn't anticipate. The fact that fellow students at PSU had experienced water depravation was a real eye-opener for them."
Virginia Fisher, House Manager, Silver Center for the Arts, Plymouth State University
